District admins legalising river-grabbers: BAPA

FE Report | Published: March 14, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (BAPA) on Friday alleged that district administrators are legalising illegal encroachers by wrongly demarcating rivers and erecting pillars, flouting the High Court (HC) order and top-level decisions.
They also alleged that despite submitting list of the illegal encroachers and recommendations to the river taskforce by BAPA, pillars set up in wrong places by the district administrators are not being removed.
Rather the illegal occupiers are engaged in grabbing rivers with the administrations' help, they added.
BAPA made these allegations at a press conference on 'Illegal and Wrong Pillars in the Rivers, Increasing Encroachment. Erect Pillars in the Right Places by Obeying the HC Order' at Sagar-Runi Auditorium at Dhaka Reporter's Unity (DRU) in the capital.
The environmentalist group organised the programme on the occasion of International Day of Action for Rivers, to be observed today (March 14).
BAPA joint secretary Sharif Jamil said the organisation protested the set up of wrong pillars by the district administrators after the historic HC verdict to protect the rivers in 2009.
The river taskforce decided to monitor the pillar erection activities at one stage and formed various probe committees, he also said.  
"The district administrations are wrongly setting up pillars in foreshore or inside banks, encouraging the illegal occupiers to encroach river areas, which is a serious violation of the HC order."
The taskforce wasted time by forming various administrative and visiting teams by neglecting proper enforcement of the HC verdict, he added.
BAPA general secretary Abdul Matin said the district administrators are not following the decisions of top policymakers at field-level, which is much apparent in case of pillar erection.
He said rivers of the country will be gradually destroyed, following these instances of wrong river demarcation.
BAPA vice-president Rasheda K Chowdhury questioned why the top-level decisions are not executed at field-level.
She also opined that the rivers cannot be protected for the interest of a vested quarter.    
BAPA demanded full implementation of the HC verdict (construction of walkways, setting up pillars, tree plantation, sitting arrangement etc), removal of all identified and visible illegal structures in light of the HC order, and bringing all the government officials, who are involved in erecting wrong pillars, HC verdict violators and involved in wastage of government fund under the purview of law.
msshova@gmail.com