Staff Reporter :
Green activists on Friday formed a human chain at Suhrawardy Udyan in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka protesting at the felling of trees in the historic site in a bid to build a restaurant there.
Green Voice, a platform of young green activists, formed the human chain at around 10:00am.
Speaker in the programme urged the government to take immediate initiatives to stop tree felling at the historic place.
They also urged the people to take to streets to press home the demand.
The green organisation formed the human chain a day after a legal notice was served on the Bangladesh government on Thursday asking it to stop within 48 hours felling of trees of historic Suhrawardy Udyan Dhaka to facilitate construction of restaurants.
A legal notice was served on Thursday asking government it to stop within 48 hours felling of trees of historic Suhrawardy Udyanin Dhaka to facilitate construction of restaurants.
Supreme Court lawyer Manzill Murshid on behalf of Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh served the notice to Liberation War ministry’s secretary, the chief engineer of public works department and the chief architect of Bangladesh.
Manzill in the notice said that trees were felling to build restaurants or shops on the commercial purpose damaging the original structure of ‘Udyan’ and heritage in violation of the environmental law.
He also said that building restaurants inside the historic place of War of Liberation was also a violation of a High Court’s directive that in 2009 asked the government to protect the sanctity of the historic place.
He said that the High Court issued the directive after hearing a public interest litigation writ petition filed by HRBP.
