18 February 2003 Daily Star
Staff Correspondent
More than five thousand people were evicted from a slum near the Osmani Udyan
yesterday.
A girl carries firewood at a demolished slum near the Osmani Udyan yesterday. The Bangladesh Railway bulldozed about 1,200 shanties, leaving more than five thousand people homeless. Photo:STAR
"I have nowhere to go," said 50-year-old Laily Begum, who had lived in the slum since the liberation war.
Most evicted people took shelter on the sidewalk in front of the Fazlul Huq
Hall and in the Osmani Udyan.
The Bangladesh Railway (BR) bulldozed about 1,200 shanties in a five-hour drive
with back-ups from two platoons of police to recover land from encroachers.
Communications Minister Nazmul Huda instructed the railway authorities to recover the land, said Nurul Kabir Siddiqui, deputy commissioner and divisional estate officer of the BR.
The authorities will plant trees in the land in a week to ward off further encroachment,
he said.
Heroin peddling that was common in the shanties will be stopped now, he said.
"I am not a heroin peddler. Why did the government evict me?" asked
a slum-dweller.
"Slum-dwellers don't sell heroin. All drug peddlers are outsiders,"
said Sadeq, a construction worker, who used to live in a shanty.
Outsiders peddled drugs in connivance with police and the railway staff, alleged many slum-dwellers. Liton, Jahangir and Kajal are among the peddlers.
The authorities fixed February 9 for the eviction drive but deferred it because
of the Eid-ul-Azha.
The bulldozer also smashed an office of the Railway Employees' Welfare Trust
and some other structures raised by the BR staff. The drive will resume today.