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High-rise in Sonai River to encourage grabbing

Greens tell Bapa press conference

Staff Correspondent
The recent decision of a national taskforce allowing construction of a high-rise in the Sonai River at Habiganj's Madhabpur upazila will encourage river grabbers, environmental activists said yesterday.
"The 10-storey Future Park has been created right inside the river. There will be many flats in it with a lot of light and air for the rich to enjoy but a river will die," said Prof Abdullah Abu Sayeed, president of Bangladesh Paribesh Andolon (Bapa).
A venture of Saiham Group, owned by three siblings including Syed Md
Qaisar, a convicted war criminal, the building would have 124 flats, 802 shops, and 13 office units.
Bapa, a movement by environmental rights activists, yesterday organised a press conference in Dhaka Reporters Unity, demanding immediate cancellation of the taskforce's decision and demolition of Saiham Future Complex, by taking the river related laws into consideration.
Citing the port rules 1966, land management directives 1991, wetland conservation act 2000, and water act 2013, Bapa stated that even if the river flowed over privately owned land, filling it and or building any structure
there would be against the law and the interest of the state.
In a slideshow presentation, Joint Secretary of Bapa Sharif Jamil showed how Sonai had been slowly filled and grabbed since 2003, and the high-rise was being built.
He said that because of the building, the river flow was blocked in violation of law, and posed threat for a nearby bridge on the Dhaka-Sylhet highway during monsoon.
The construction work was stalled in April last year, and a decision to ask the law ministry to take necessary steps to remove all structures from the river was taken by the national taskforce on rivers in June.
However, instead of implementing the decision, another committee, with M Ataharul Islam, chief commissioner of National River Conservation Commission (NRCC), as convener, was formed to investigate the matter.
"Based on a site visit, related documents from different departments and ministries of the government and interviews of the locals, we have viewed that the structure stands on private property. No incident of land grabbing was visible," Ataharul Islam told The Daily Star.
Bapa's Jamil, however, said the visit was
made during the dry season but nothing in this regard was mentioned in the committee report, based on which the taskforce permitted resumption of the construction.
Law defines a river based on its flow during the rainy season, noted Bapa General Secretary Abdul Matin.
Rights activist and Co-president of Bapa Sultana Kamal said development work should not contradict law.
Bapa's five other demands include removal of the wrongly placed demarcation pillars and implementation of the High Court's 2009 order that the boundary markers should be placed newly, 50 metres off the high tide mark of the river foreshore.