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Thrown out in the cold

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
Trembling in cold, malnourished and barely clothed five-year-old Russell pestered his mother for food in a feeble voice. The destitute mother in a torn sari found no words to make her child understand she had nothing to feed him.
The widowed woman and the child were passing their sixth day yesterday under the open sky at Kalyanpur Pora Bustee (slum).
"How could I manage him a little food, whom could I approach?" Jahanara said wiping tears with the 'anchal' (edge) of her sari. She was sitting on the ruins of her flattened shanty at Section-3 of the slum.
Jahanara is among some 2,000 evicted from their shanties at the slum as part of a drive to recover government land from encroach-
ment.
The House Building Research Institute (HBRI), which was likely to arrange dwellings for these homeless people, began the eviction from December 21 although a vacation bench of the High Court asked it not to disturb the shanty people till December 27.
"Without making any rehabilitation arrangement, they (HBRI) ordered us on December 20 to leave our homes with our belongings by 10:00am the next day," said M Ali Hossain, a freedom fighter.
"I have been living here for the last 12 years with my two sons and four daughters since my house at Tajumuddin in Bhola was washed away in river erosion," he said.
"When our houses were being bulldozed, men of local Ward Commissioner Shamim Parvez looted most of our belongings
including corrugated tin, fence and bamboo poles. I don't have anything to rebuild my shanty even if I am allowed to stay here," said Rahima, a woman from Charfassion of Bhola, now working as a domestic help.
She has no place to go as her husband ditched her and their 4-year-old daughter about eight years ago to marry again, she added.
The HBRI people have demolished the shanties in seven of the nine sections of the slum, where people mostly from Bhola, Mymensingh, Noakhali, Faridpur and some northern districts were living for 16 to 18 years. Schools and clinics run by various organisations were also demolished.
Many of the evicted have taken shelter on the embankment at SEE PAGE 11 COL 6
FROM PAGE 12
Mirpur and Mohammadpur, and in Kamrangirchar, Savar and Paikpara. But a large number of them are still staying there hoping for
a High Court injunction on the eviction.
"The ward commissioner's men threatened that we will be driven away by any means," said Manashi, a 50-year-old widow from Nilphamari. Her only son, a rickshawpuller, deserted her as the eviction started.
Ain O Salish Kendra, the Coalition for Urban Poor, two non-govern-mental organisations, and two residents of the bustee filed a writ with the High Court on December 24, saying the eviction was carried out without lawful authority.
A High Court vacation bench of Justice Mahmud Hossain heard the writ yesterday and fixed today for further hearing. Dr Kamal Hossain and Advocate Ramzan Ali Shikder represented the petitioners.
The eviction started at a time when rehabilitation of 3,000 slum dwellers at Sreepur in Gazipur awaits a final approval of the land ministry, some victims said.
In 1994, the HBRI attempted to evict the slum people without any prior notice and Modhumala, a garment worker living in Section- 2 of the slum for 15 years, filed a writ with the High Court. The court prohibited forced eviction without prior notice and proper rehabilitation of the slum dwellers.