‘Chittagong Shishu Park’ closed after years of protest
An organisation named ‘Aporajeyo Bangla’ had been demanding the removal of the children’s park for several years
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The Chattogram district administration has closed the ‘Chittagong Shishu Park’ next to the Circuit House in the port city and has transferred the land over to the Ministry of Defence.
The main gates of the amusement park were locked on Monday afternoon and a notice was hung there afterwards.
“Property of the Ministry of Defence. No unauthorised entry. By order of the military estates officer, Eastern Zone, Chattogram Cantonment,” the notice said.
“The land belongs to the Ministry of Defence,” said Rakibul Hasan, a senior assistant commissioner of the district administration, who was present to close the gate. “Their executive officer was present. We only locked the park. The land has been handed over to them.”
An organisation named ‘Aporajeyo Bangla’ has been protesting for the past two years to demand the removal of the park in the Circuit House area.
The group held a human chain demonstration and rally to demand the removal of the children’s park from the Circuit House area due to its significance in the Liberation War. They demanded the construction of a Liberation War monument at the location and for it to be kept open as a public space.
On Dec 17, 1971, freedom fighters hoisted the first flag of an independent Bangladesh in Chattogram in front of the Circuit House.
Local MP and Deputy Minister of Education Mohibul Hassan Chowdhoury was also adamant about the park’s closure.
On May 9, 2021, he wrote to several authorities requesting the scrapping of the lease for the Chittagong Shishu Park.
On Jul 13, 1992, the Ministry of Defence gave its approval for the construction of the park following interest from the Chattogram City Corporation.
The city corporation then gave the Dhaka-based company Vaya Media Business Services Limited a 25-year lease, which expired in November 2019.
In 2020, the city corporation renewed the lease with the same company for another 15 years.
On Sept 8, 2020, an organisation called Nagorik Udyog formed a human chain to demand the removal of the park. The chief advisor of that organisation was a local Awami League leader, Khorshed Alam Sujan.
Sujan also took the initiative to shift the park to a separate location during his six-month tenure as the administrator at the city corporation, but ran out of time.