Rangs demolition in full swing

Dhaka, August 4 (bdnews24.com) – Rajuk workers Saturday resumed demolition of the Rangs Bhaban after the once majestic building was stripped to a skeleton Friday. More than 100 workers started working Saturday morning in the building. The building was Friday stripped to its skeleton of glass shards as Rajuk deployed 350 workers to work two shifts to slice off most of the controversial 22-storey highrise. The floors were strewn with glass shards and broken flower vases. No more the Rangs Bhaban people used to know, just a huge, pale structure of concrete. The first team of the demolition workers entered the building at 7:45am, hours after the Supreme Court declared the construction of the structure illegal, bdnews24.com correspondents report from the scene. The city developer moved in to demolish 16 floors of the 22-storey structure on the busy Bijoy Sarani after it got court approval in a long-running court battle. The drive kicked off after Rajuk magistrate ASM Emdadud Dastagir formally asked chief engineer Shah Alam to start the work. The workers began with the top floor of the building, which public works adviser Mainul Hosein described as the "symbol of the abuse of power". The demolition workers were equipped with hammers for the task. Rajuk workers stripped different floors of glass sidings, but the main structure was untouched. Traffic slowed on Bijoy Sarani as hundreds of people lined the edge of the road not to miss out on the last opportunity to see the controversial landmark of Rangs Group, controlled by businessman Abdur Rouf Chowdhury, come under Rajuk's sledgehammer. Many took pictures of the condemned tower, which had served as a symbol of the thousands of unapproved structures across the city of 10 million people, against the bright sunlight on their mobile phones. The Supreme Court in a verdict Thursday allowed the emergency government to trim the 22-storeys, which had been constructed without official approval, to leave a 6-storey commercial building. A bdnews24.com correspondent surveyed 10 floors of the structure that lost inner sidewalls and ceilings to the initial onslaughts of hammers. The workers also demolished the interiors of the offices on the floors of the building. The floors were strewn with glass shards and broken flower vases. The headquarters of Bank Asia located on the eighth floor of the building was left untouched for the time being as the bank officials were busy separating the metal vault from the wall to take it to its Motijheel branch. A senior official of the bank, Khalequzzaman, told bdnews24.com that the vault would be relocated to Motijheel. Rajuk formed 14 teams to supervise and manage the drive. On each floor, 25 workers have been deployed to be supervised by a Rajuk representative. "We hope to complete the demolition work in three months. The workers will work eight-hour shifts. If necessary we have to take help of heavy machinery to knock down parts of the structure," Rajuk's chief engineer Shah Alam told bdnews24.com. Speaking to reporters in front of the building, magistrate Dastagir said: "The court order says that we have to knock down all floors 60 feet from the ground floor." "For the time being, we will limit our work to taking windows, doors and other easily removable items off the building. "Rangs authorities extended all-out cooperation in relocation of equipment and goods. I came to the site at about 11 Thursday night to see it for myself."