SC orders halt for six weeks

The Supreme Court yesterday directed the authorities concerned to maintain status quo for six weeks on the possession of a land used for the Bihari camp in the capital's Pallabi area where some 70,000 stranded Urdu-speaking Pakistanis live.

The four-member bench of the Appellate Division of the SC headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha passed the order on a petition filed by two residents of the camp seeking status quo on the possession of the 97 acre land.

Hafizur Rahman Khan, lawyer for the petitioners, told The Daily Star that people of the camp cannot be evicted for six weeks following the apex court order, adding that the government and the camp's residents would have to maintain status quo on the possession of the land following the SC order.

The petition was moved before the apex court after the High Court on March 29, upheld a government decision to evict the people, who live outside their designated camps, from the government land.

However, the HC ordered the government to rehabilitate those evicted persons who had national identity card and were loyal to Bangladesh as soon as possible.

The HC gave the verdict hearing after some Urdu-speaking people of the camp and Odhikar, a rights organisation, filed nine petitions with it between 2001 and 2011, challenging the eviction move.