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Milestone School and College in Dhaka’s Uttara should be relocated as it lies within the approach area of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport and poses safety risks, the Bangladesh Institute of Planners (BIP) has said in a report.
“The institution may be technically legal, but its location is operationally unsafe,” said BIP Joint Secretary Tamjidul Islam, presenting the report, at a press conference at Planners’ Tower in Dhaka’s Banglamotor.
The report warned against allowing schools, colleges, mosques, or madrasas in the approach zone and recommended green or agricultural use instead.
It also noted that while RAJUK’s Detailed Area Plan regulates building height, it lacks guidance on land use.
BIP President Adil Muhammad Khan said the area where Milestone now stands was originally a water body when the Dhaka Metropolitan Development Plan was drafted in 1995.
Questioning why RAJUK did not object to the filling of low land for Milestone, the planner said neither RAJUK nor the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) fulfilled their responsibilities.
“Even the builders of the structures did not fulfill their own commitments,” he added.
At least 33 people have died and over 150 have been injured after a Bangladesh Air Force training aircraft crashed into the school on Monday.
BIP General Secretary Sheikh Muhammad Mehedi Ahsan called for a high-level review of public structures in the approach area .
He suggested that those concerned approved unsafe development should be identified and held accountable so that similar incidents may be prevented in the future.