Cars and microbuses illegally parked on Muktangan in the capital on Monday for rent — FE Photo
Muktangan, once marked as an exclusive place for holding rallies and demonstrations, has become a hub of illegal rent-a-car business.
The east side of the high-security Secretariat too is now an illegal car parking place.
The city fathers have been turning a blind eye for long at the two places where some 130 cars remain parked ignoring the public park that was Muktangan as well as one of major streets of the capital.
The grabbers are running two car renting centres under two different names -- Dhaka Microbus and Car Owners Association at Muktangan and City Cab Owners Association at the east side of the Secretariat.
Both the associations claimed that they are affiliated with the Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Samity. They have two offices and full-time office staffs there too.
Some 80 cars occupy Mutangon and some 50 cars the east side of the Secretariat and other adjacent areas at the heart of the country's administration for running illegal rent-a-car business.
Dhaka South City Corporation officials said they launched drives and recovered the land on several occasions in the past, but the encroachers took it under their possession again and again for lack of proper supervision on the part of the authorities concerned.
Muktangan is located between Paltan and Zero Point. But the park is virtually non-existent. Around 83 decimals of land of the park are now being illegally occupied by rent-a-car businessmen.
During an on-the-spot visit, this correspondent found the boundary wall around the park dismantled. A police box has been constructed on the northern part of the park without permission from the authorities concerned. Similarly, a mosque has been constructed on the land.
Some vested quarters have been collecting tolls at the rate of Tk 200 to Tk 400 from the owner or driver of each car every day. If any person wants to use the place for car parking, he has to pay Tk 10,000 as registration fee. This is how the park has been captured by a group of people in the name of car rental business.
Meher Hossain Khan, Secretary of Muktangan-based Dhaka Microbus and Car Owners Association said they want to use the land legally.
"Around 2,000 people are working here. If the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) evicts businessmen from this place, they would be unemployed," he said.
He also admitted they paid tolls to a section of dishonest corporation officials and traffic department people regularly to run the business.
The City Cab Owners Association has set up an office occupying newspaper stand at the east side of Secretariat.
Secretary of City Cab Owners Association Md Alamgir Khan said they regularly pay bribe to the City Corporation officials and the traffic department for use of the place.
He does not think City Cab Owners Association is doing anything wrong by occupying the place.
He said hundreds of other vendors and make-shift shops use footpaths across the city. They also pay bribes to the authorities and political goons.
However, Khandaker Enayet Ullah, president of Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Malik Samity, said these two associations are not their members.
"We don't recognise them as our part," he said.
Khalid Ahmed, Chief Estate Officer of Dhaka South City Corporation, refused to meet this correspondent.
But another junior official of the department, seeking anonymity, said they recovered Muktangan from illegal occupation on several occasions and locked the two gates so that cars and microbuses could not enter the place. But the people associated with the business dismantled the wall every time for using the place for car parking.
Currently, there is a Dhaka Metropolitan Police ban on holding any kind of programmes, social or political, on the premises of Muktangan because it is situated near the Bangladesh Secretariat building.
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