The felling of the 20-year-old trees took place secretly within the premises of the historical Eidgah, which is surrounded by fence. DCC (Dhaka City Corporation) workers noticed the act and immediately informed the higher authorities.

A DCC team of high officials lead by chief conservancy officer Sohel Faruque arrived on the spot on Monday morning and stopped the plundering.

Atikul Habib, general secretary of the mosque committee, said that shadows of the huge trees were making the area dark. Besides, "The elderly of the area complained to us that those trees were creating obstacles to their movements."

"The trees were sold at Tk 3,000, Atik added.

"The decision to chop down a few trees were taken with the consent of the committee members including local commissioner Abul Khaer Bablu who is also the vice president of the Dhanmondi Eidgah mosque committee," added Atik.

He informed this correspondent of a future expansion plan for the mosque and said, "Then we have to chop down more trees...."

However, Bablu denied having to do anything with the felling of trees and said they were only trimming the branches of the trees. "It was Atik bhai, the general secretary of the mosque committee, who told me to clear the area of the trees this morning. In fact, I stopped the workers from felling the trees."

This correspondent talked to at least half a dozen locals present on the scene who clearly pointed their fingers at Abul Khaer Bablu as the person behind the felling.

A caretaker of the area who identified himself as Gazi, quoted Bablu as saying the trees needed to be felled to enable the passers by to have a good view of the historical Eidgah Maidan.

Sources in the area also pointed out that the ward commissioner and the mosque committee are cooking up a plot to grab a chunk of land, approximately one bigha, situated between the Satmasjid Road and the historical Eidgah Maidan.

"The mosque committee has already plans to build a shopping complex cum a madrasa on the piece of land," said a long time resident of Dhanmondi requesting anonymity.

"Local commissioner Bablu is backing up the plan of the mosque committee with the understanding that he would receive half a dozen shops from the proposed market," he added.

The mosque committee claimed that the whole area inside the boundary fences of the Eidgah Maidan including the piece of vacant land situated between Satmasjid Road and the west side boundary fence of the Eidgah is the property of the Waqf.

However, Public Works Department (PWD) officials admitted being aware of the tree felling and claimed that the historical Eidgah belongs to the Department of Archeology while the mosque to the Waqf. But the remainder of the land, an area of 2.5 acres, definitely belong to PWD. The mosque authority has only been using parts of their land upon receiving permission from PWD.

"This is not for the first time the same mosque committee chopped down trees. On December 22 of 2006, they illegally chopped down a number of trees from the area that originally belonged to PWD. As a result PWD filled a case," said an official concerned at PWD.

Last year, on June 11, Ministry of Housing and Public works approved to convert the PWD-owned vacant land next to the historical Eidgah Maidan into a roadside park.

There are had been only two similar Eidgah's built in 1640 in the subcontinent during the Mughal period. The other similar Eidgah can be found in Delhi.

Our investigation reveals that in 1994, when the mosque committee first tried to grab the PWD land, PWD filed a case against the perpetrators in Dhanmondi thana. The police immediately stopped the mosque committee from building a fence around the PWD plot, which was originally designated for a beautification park next to the historical sight.

3 years later, in 1997, PWD looked on helplessly as the mosque committee, with the connivance of political high ups, surrounded the PWD owned area with high boundary fences and put up a signboard claiming that the ownership of the land inside the boundary belonged to the Waqf estate.

Taslimuddin Jamaddar, executive engineer at PWD, said he had recently transferred into the area and therefore had no clue about the estate property under his custody. He then recommended this correspondent to talk with the sub-divisional engineer.

The sub-divisional engineer of PWD, Rejaul Islam, said PWD owns the land that the Waqf is claiming as their property. He also vowed to take measures immediately to evict the encroachers and convert the area into a small park for enhancing the beauty of the historical site.

However, the general secretary of the mosque committee said they would convert the disputed land into a parking lot for the mosque goers.

At present, many illegal structures mushroomed around the Eidgah and made the Mughal archaeological structure almost invisible to the passers by.

A number of tea stalls, a hand-made packet factory, a kazi office, a madrasa, a dormitory for the madrasa students, a Dhaka Electricity Supply Authority (Desa) office and a government-run warehouse completely overshadowed the Eidgah that bears the legacy of more than 350 years.

When asked about the illegal structures on and around the historical site, the general secretary of the mosque committee said, "We have given verbal notice to the encroachers to leave the place and hope they will leave the place very soon."

Meanwhile, environmentalist organisation Bapa (Bangladesh Poribesh Andolan) in a written statement protested the felling of trees.

Roadside illegal parking is the main obstacle to the passers by, not the trees, observed Bapa.