2,500-Acre Land Grabbing
Railway beefs up eviction drive
Bangladesh Railway has strengthened its eviction drive to recover about 2,500 acres of its land illegally occupied by influential people in the country.
The railway authorities recently wrote to its four divisional estate offices in Rajshahi, Pakshi, Lalmonirhat and Chittagong to launch the drives simultaneously.
“To start with we will recover the land that has no legal complications,” Railway Director General TA Chowdhury told The Daily Star yesterday.
He said the railway authority would take legal steps to repossess the remaining land which face court injunction or other legal complications.
Meanwhile Chief Estate Officer Kamal Uddin of the West Zone said they are expediting the drive on receiving the instruction from higher authorities.
“The main difficulty estate offices face in doing it is the shortage of magistrates and police force,” he added.
Bangladesh Railway authority owns about 63,312 acres of land, a large part of which has been lost to encroachers. The authority has been carrying out drives against land grabbers but most of the efforts remain futile largely because of pressure and interception from influential quarters backed by politicians including ruling party leaders.
Some of the land recovered in the past was lost again to these influential people.
The encroachers run unauthorised businesses on the grabbed land by constructing markets or slums there. Some have even built religious structures like mosques and shrines.
Various government bodies also occupy around about 804 acres of railway land without railway approval. They do not pay the railway for the use of land either, sources in the railyway said.
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