No <i>grabber at</i> Gulshan lakes?

The Daily Star shot these images of Gulshan lake on three different occasions from the side facing Gulshan-1. The photos show a small portion of the numerous encroachments that have sprouted over the years. Photo: Sk Enamul Haq

Ignoring a High Court order, Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha is demarcating the lake in Gulshan based on their existing banks, not according to the original area of the lakes, allegedly to protect powerful land grabbers.
Abu Hasan Mortuza, in charge of Rajuk town planning department, said, "We have taken possession of as much of the lake as possible so that the least number of people are affected.
"There are no land grabbers as per the layout maps," he claimed.
Rajuk is implementing a development project to “conserve” Gulshan-Baridhara and Gulshan-Banani sections of the lake bypassing a High Court order. The court in 2009 had directed Rajuk to survey the lake's actual area with the help of the land survey office to restore the original areas to the water body. The court also directed Rajuk to publish names of occupiers of the lake and rehabilitate genuine land owners.
Rajuk neither carried out the survey nor published any list of illegal occupiers in line with the order.
The land settlement office of Dhaka had sought maps of Dhaka's master plan from Rajuk in early 2010 to ascertain the lake's areas but got no response from Rajuk. The then settlement officer of Dhaka had told The Daily Star that such survey would only legitimise lake encroachment done over the years.
Rajuk's Mortuza said it was impossible to take back lakeshore plots allocated to people by government high-ups.
According to sources, Rajuk itself created housing projects by squeezing the lakes of the capital since the 80's and allotted plots to powerful quarters. It had also legitimised influential individuals' lake grabbing, they claimed.
The layout, based on which demarcation is now going on, excludes massive encroachment on the lake between Gausul Azam mosque and Karail slum.
An illegal six-storey building on the lake at the end of Road-23/A, the Waterfront apartment complex and Mariam Tower were a few glaring examples of lake grabbing, the sources said.
Vitti Sthapati Brindo, consultant for lake development in 2001, recommended cancellation of 157 vacant plots on the lake, based on Rajuk's layout.
The Supreme Court in 1996 endorsed a map of the lake's Baridhara section that marked the lake's banks straight. Rajuk, however, altered the map to build walkways and legalised hundreds of illegal plots on the lake.
Many legal lakeshore plot owners also encroached upon the lake to extend land owned by them which Rajuk legitimised.
Rajuk Chairman Md Nurul Huda admitted that the measures to protect the lake had not been appropriate. "We are now working on the existing lake and will acquire some private land within it. I don't know what had happened before I took over," he said.
He said they had informed the High Court about 21 plots on the lake which were entangled in court cases.
Rajuk was set to acquire 11 acres of “private land” of claimants even though the land had been part of the lake since the 60s, which in effect means Rajuk was buying something that actually belonged to it.
Rajuk is also going to acquire 23 acres of “private land” in Banani section of the lake.
The demarcation project for 280 acres of the lake was worth Tk 410 crore and two-thirds of the cost had been marked for land acquisition.
Syeda Rizwana Hasan, chief executive of Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association, said Rajuk never made the final demarcation of the lake, as it had to serve the powerful grabbers with lakeside luxurious living.
Earth filling in the lake went on unabated despite a High Court order against it in 2006.
As many as 20 grabbers embarked upon filling up of Gulshan-Baridhara Lake at Shahjadpur Jheelpar, to the south of Mariam Tower, in a systematic manner five years ago and were continuing to do so.
First, they build temporary sidewalks filling the lake fringe and then start filling the lake with soil, sand and leftover construction materials. They then plant banana trees and build makeshift and semi-concrete structures to mark their “plots”.