Md Mahabub Alam :
The boundary wall of the Azimpur Graveyard [from New Paltan Super Market to BGB Gate-3] was demolished a year ago in order to expand the ‘New Paltan Road’, but the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) has neither expanded the road nor repaired the wall.
As a result, people, who accompany the dead bodies for burial, and the pedestrians have been facing inconveniences for days together.
But it gives opportunity to the drug addicts and the organised crime gangs to snatch taka, cell phones
and wristwatches from the passers-by after nightfall. They flee into the graveyard easily after committing crimes, as the demolished boundary wall has not been repaired. The DSCC erected part of the wall with tins. But most of those tins have vanished by this time.
The drug addicts used to target pedestrians at night and take away valuables from their possessions.
Taking valuables from graveyard visitors, they run away and take shelter inside of the graveyard, local people say.
Sources said that the city corporation could not take initiative to expand the road and repair the boundary wall following a writ petition filed with the High Court.
Pedestrians and those, who offer fateha for their relatives at night, become the victims of snatching Mohammad Based Ali, a resident of Madbar Bazaar at Kamrangirchar told The New Nation that earlier he came to offer fateha at his parents and father-in-law’s graves at night after finishing his daily job. “But now I do at daytime as I have been alerted by an employee of the graveyard about the menace of drug addicts at night”.
Enamul Haque, a regular devotee in the mosque located in the graveyard told this reporter that he saw several drug addicts inside the graveyard at noon on Saturday to enjoy ganja.
When asked, Moulvi Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, In-charge of Azimpur Graveyard, refused to say anything and asked this correspondent to contact assistant social welfare officer (Region No- 3) of Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC).
And M Rokunuzzaman, Assistant Social Welfare Officer of DSCC, said that he was unable to make any comment.
