Published on 12:00 AM, August 16, 2015

Eviction leaves AGB Colony occupants under open sky

A woman sitting on a cot prepares betel leaves under the open sky in the capital's Motijheel after Public Works Department started evicting people from two dilapidated buildings in the area's AGB Colony on Wednesday. Photo: Firoz Ahmed, Palash Khan
Staff Correspondent

The Public Works Department (PWD) began demolishing two dilapidated buildings at Motijheel AGB Colony staff quarters in the capital on Wednesday forcing over a hundred occupants to vacate the buildings and making some of them stay under the open sky.  

“We are making way for a Tk 200-crore project to build four 20-story buildings to accommodate more government employees at the place,” said PWD chief engineer Md Kabir Ahmed Bhuiyan. 

A total of nine dilapidated buildings were declared risky in 2005, of which seven have so far been demolished in phases, he said.

The remaining two are now being knocked down, he said, adding the project would be implemented under the government's annual development programme this year.  

Two workers remove a broken door. A notice of the authorities concerned on a wall reads, Buildings No-34, 36 are very old, rundown and risky, which were declared unlivable on March 20, 2005. Photo: Firoz Ahmed, Palash Khan

The action forced some 60 occupants to stay under the open sky for the last four days as they readily could not manage alternative accommodation.

Those who have no relatives in the city could not find accommodation either, as it was the middle of the month, they said.  

“I have given Tk 5,500 to a person who claimed to be the owner of the room I rented but he vanished after the demolition started,” said Minu Begum, a tenant of one of the two  buildings.

All her belongings got drenched in rain under the open sky, she said.

“We have been living in the building paying Tk 2,000 to a man named Alam per month,” said Firoza Begum. “We received notices many times from the authorities including the latest one on August 7 but we just ignored those," said Sadia, another resident.

Halima Begum, wife of a peon of Bangladesh Betar, said they did not have any option other than renting a room at the risky building because they could not afford alternative accommodation.

The occupants, however, have been ignoring the warning for a decade putting themselves at risk of accident. Photo: Firoz Ahmed, Palash Khan

Bhuiyan in this regard said it was not their responsibility to provide accommodation to illegal occupants.

Twenty families living in two buildings claimed that they had permanent official allotments, and which was why they did not move out without alternative accommodation.  Built in 1952, these buildings at first were allotted to cleaners and other lower-echelon government employees, according to a PWD official. 

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