Five government agencies, in the presence of top district officials and the police, in a joint drive on Tuesday night stopped the 'unauthorised' filling up of a pond by ruling party lawmaker Enamul Haque at Meherchandi in Rajshahi city.
During the one-hour raid that began around 10:30pm, the enforcement team seized an earth-filling machine and track loader, from the scene and kept it under the authority of local ward councillor Mokhlesur Rahman Khalil.
The MP's men, who had been working all the day and night, fled the scene an hour before the raid took place. Around 40 percent of the pond -- on some 30 bighas of land -- was filled up until Tuesday.
The team also directed the ward councillor to have an eye on the site so that none could fill it up anymore. However, as per the February 19 direction of the Rajshahi Development Authority (RDA), the MP's men can re-excavate the pond by February 29.
RDA chairman Abdur Rahim, Abdul Hannan, deputy commissioner of Rajshahi, M Obaidullah, commissioner of Rajshahi Metropolitan Police (RMP), chief chemist Mizanur Rahman of Department of Environment (DoE), and Sadekul Islam, executive magistrate of Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) led the operation when Morshedul Anwar Khan, RMP deputy commissioner and Khan M Shahriar, officer-in-charge of Boalia Police Station, were present amid a number of police members.
The Rajshahi DC told The Daily Star that the raid was conducted to follow the December 13, 2010 High Court order to suspend filling up work in any kind of water bodies in Rajshahi city.
He also said the HC on February 9 summoned the top officials of eight different government agencies to appear before it today (February 23) and explain how the lawmaker was filling up the pond through violating the court order.
The officials are the secretaries of public works department, land, and forest and environment ministries, director general of the DoE, Rajshahi DC, RMP commissioner, RDA chairman and chief executive officer of RCC.
On January 26, the RDA had on an information slip warned the lawmaker from Rajshahi-4 (Bagmara) constituency that filling up of the pond would be illegal. It then served him a notice in the first week of February asking him to desist from filling up the water body.
The lawmaker, who also owns real estate firm Ena Properties, did not respond to the two previous warnings. Enamul claimed the RDA had no right to serve notices as the land had not been earmarked as a pond in land documents.
According to one of the two signboards erected by the pond, the land will be used for the proposed 'Saleha Imarat Hospital and College', while another signboard declares Enamul to be the owner of the land.
Meanwhile, this correspondent yesterday visited the area and found the signboards still there. The authorities, during the drive, also did not put up a signboard declaring the filling up of the pond to be illegal.
Filling up a pond or any water body without approval from the DoE is prohibited by the Environment Conservation (Amendment) Act of 2010.