Illegal Brick Kilns: Enforce one-year jail for owners

Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB) yesterday requested the High Court to direct the government to enforce one year's jail sentence against the owners of illegal brick kilns for polluting the environment.

In most cases, the government only fines the owners of the brick kilns, which have no licence, through mobile courts. They don't fully demolish those and therefore, the owners again operate such illegal brick kilns and damage the environment, HRPB's lawyer Manzill Murshid told the HC during hearing a petition.

The lawyer said there is a provision of one year's jail sentence under the Brick Kilns Control Act, 2013 for running brick kilns without any licence and the mobile courts should enforce this.

Meanwhile, Amatul Karim Swapna, the lawyer for DoE, told the HC that some 319 illegal brick kilns are still running in Dhaka and four other surrounding districts -- Gazipur, Manikganj, Narayanganj and Munshiganj.

The HC bench of Justice Md Ashfaqul Islam and Md Iqbal Kabir Lytton fixed March 1 for delivering order on the petition.