Morshed, son of late Seraj Hossain, whose grave was under threat of being lost under the road said he cried for two days when he learned that a road would be constructed over his father's grave.

"It was so painful to think that I would have never been able offer prayer in front of my father's grave," said Morshed.

"It was unimaginable to even think that hundreds of vehicles would be running over my late father's grave," said Rezwan Chowdhury, son of late Abu Salam.

"We have closed the Measurement Book (MB) of the project before declaring it abandoned so that no one can take any more advantage," said the mayor.

The mayor of DCC issued a written order on Monday to cancel the work and said that he would check the files of this project and will take action against the officials who defied his earlier order.

The mayor admitted that DCC should have been more careful before issuing such a work order and warned DCC officials not to make any such mistakes in future.

Asha Enterprise, a construction company owned by ruling party MP Nasiruddin Pintu, began constructing the Azimpur-Newmarket link road across one of the oldest graveyards in the city early this month after being awarded a tender from DCC.

When it was reported in the media, the mayor issued a verbal order last week to stop the construction. Though initially the width of the road was supposed to be 20 feet, later it was expanded to 23 feet allegedly. This would have left no traces of at least 4,000 graves in the graveyard.

Munshi Abul Hashem, executive officer, DCC zone-3 said that they have sent the cancellation order to the constructor.

"I joined recently. Someone else was in charge at the time of issuing the work order. So I do not want to comment on how the work order for a road across the graveyard was issued," Hashem told Star City.

Nasiruddin Pintu on Monday told the parliament that if anyone could prove his involvement with the Azimpur graveyard road construction, he will resign.

But Pintu himself had told this reporter on Saturday that he would not stop the construction of the road until he gets written cancellation order from DCC.

When this reporter tried to contact Pintu again on Tuesday over his mobile phone for his comments, someone answered the phone but hung up after learning that it was a call from The Daily Star and did not receive further calls despite repeated try.