Syed Shemul Parvez :
Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) evicted around 600 illegal infrastructures and shops from markets on Fulbaria Road in the capital’s Gulistan amid sporadic scuffling with a section of traders on Monday.
Traders of Fulbaria market-1, 2 & 3 tried to stage demonstration against the eviction drive.
The traders alleged that they have been paying taxes and shop rents regularly to the DSCC authorities but the present city corporation authorities are evicting their shops.
“We have become helpless. We still don’t know how to bear the cost of our family expenditure in the capital city as we lost everything” a trader said.
Some people suggested us to take help from the high court to get compensation from the concern authorities, he added.
According to DSCC officials, there were more than four thousand shops in the three markets – known as City Plaza, Nagar Plaza and Zaker Plaza – where nearly 1,500 of those were built illegally, in breach of the original design.
The shops were mostly constructed while Sayeed Khokon was mayor of DSCC, current officials also said.
DSCC estate officer and senior executive magistrate Moniruzzaman, who led the eviction drive, told The New Nation that they faced protest from a section of traders and primarily evicted around 600 shops on the footpaths and in the adjacent areas of Fulbaria market-1, 2 & 3.
The shops and various infrastructures illegally constructed inside the markets will be demolished gradually, said.
Earlier DSCC had warned the traders about the eviction on Monday and asked the traders to vacant the shops.
Victim trader Yunus Mia had bought a space for his shop with Tk 20 lakh in 2012 and has been running clothing business since then.
The market committee had demanded Tk 12 lakh more in 2019 with the promise of valid registration, said Yunus. Market committee president Delwar Hossain and secretary Md Firoz had collected money from hundreds of traders with such promises, but nothing was done in their favour. ‘I have invested to the shop after selling my lands in my village. I have lost everything here,’ Yunus said.
Some traders said that Delwar and Firoz were to be blamed. They extorted money from traders and cheated them giving false promises.
Another trader Hasanul Islam said that local Juba League leader Rony and Bappi also forced them to pay money in the name of permanent registration.
On the other hand, controversy has erupted over the eviction of 911 shops in DSCC’s Fulbaria Markets. The current mayor marked these shops as illegal but the former mayor Sayed Khokon said, these were legal shops.
Meanwhile, the owners and thousands more staffs of 911 shops have become jobless due to eviction drive.
Victim traders have given crores of taka to the city corporations officials and market committees to buy and legalize the shops. But now they are not getting the money back and they couldn’t find the right persons who were involved with this scam. Even until 2019, the city corporation had collected shop rent from them.
On the other hand, the current city corporation authorities say that these shops have been built completely illegally. So these are being evicted.
It is learned that Delwar Hossain Delu, the president of the market committee, set up more than 900 shops illegally for a long time by going beyond the design of the city corporation. They built shops occupying the bathroom, open space in front of the bathroom, elevator space, floor space, veranda, basement and open space for shoppers to walk.
Delwar sold each shop for 20 to 30 lakh taka.
A team of DSCC Market Federation met the mayor Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh over the eviction issue recently.
The federation president Dewan Aminul Islam told the media that they requested the mayor for the rehabilitation of the traders who fell victim to the drive.
“We have informed the mayor about their sufferings and financial losses of the victims. He instructed DSCC officials to enlist the name of the victim and assured that they would be rehabilitated at different floors of the Fulbaria market or at other DSCC-owned markets,” he added.
Mayor Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh told reporters in the briefing that they decided to evict all the illegal infrastructures and shops from the DSCC-owned Fulbaria markets.
