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5 years ago

Eviction drive at Shahjahanpur railway colony continues

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The eviction drive for the second day in the city’s Shahjahanpur railway colony began Wednesday in order to remove illegal occupation.

The Bangladesh Railway (BR) officials started the eviction drive at 10:00am and continued till 5:00pm.

During the drive, they pulled down and evicted over 400 establishments, including buildings, houses, grocery shops, political parties’ offices and other structures, BR estate officer at Kamalapur Nazrul Islam told the FE.

Over 100 acres of land have been freed in the last nine months, he added saying that their drive is being operated simultaneously in Dhaka, Sylhet and Mymensingh.

The drive at the colony will continue in the third phase. Some 1,300 illegal establishments are there in the colony, the officials said.

The drive was initiated with a prior notice served to the colony dwellers. But most of them paid no attention to it, officials said at the spot.

Locals told the FE that about 100,000 people were living in the colony divided into about 15 separate middle-size slums. In 2001 and 2008 major drives were foiled by the slum people, according to the local people.

Earlier on Tuesday, Railway Minister Md. Nurul Islam Sujon said at a press conference that efforts were being made to evict illegal establishments in a bid to meet the goal of building an economically viable country.

 

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