Save Shuvadda canal from grabbers
Environmentalists yesterday demanded that the government dismantle illegal establishments erected on the Shuvadda canal to protect it from the grabbers.
They made the demand from a rally organised by the Poribesh Bachao Andolon (POBA) in front of the Zora Bridge on Shuvadda canal, said a press release.
A vigorous movement by the environmentalists in 2008 propelled the then government to free the Shuvadda canal removing all the illegal structures. But the encroachers recently restarted putting up structures. The government's move to destroy these establishments has become a necessity, they added.
POBA Chairman Abu Naser Khan, its Joint General Secretary Gazi Lutful Kabir Sumon, folksinger Kuddus Boyati and local businessmen Farhad Hossain, among others, addressed the rally.
They blamed the government for not adopting effective measures to take care of and conserve the water bodies.
A total of 25 canals are lost since the 1971 Liberation War and the rest 14 are on the verge of extinction for illegal grabbing. The survival of the city dwellers will be difficult, if those canals could not be conserved. The experts also feared that this would turn Dhaka into an abandoned city.
They also demanded exemplary punishment of the land grabbers and necessary initiatives to resist raising any structure on the canal.
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