Editorial
Freeing the rivers of illegal occupation
Court's proactive role welcome
THE order of the High Court to start demolition of the 8000 or so illegal structures on the banks of the four rivers surrounding the capital and to keep it updated on the matter every three months is a heartening example of judicial activism in greater public interest. The relentless pursuit of the matter by the HC, one is confident, would help complete the job of cleaning the river bed as well as the banks of the four very vital lifeline of the capital within the stipulated time.
We feel that a good beginning has been made by ascertaining the actual number of illegal constructions which was completed through a survey, and report in this respect was submitted by the four DCs in December of last year, in compliance of the Court's directive. One would have thought that the next phase, the demolition, would have been started automatically by the authorities without waiting for further directives from the court. There is no scope for any quarter to have any doubt on the explicit order of the HC which was made in June of 2009 that the job of demolition and cleaning of the debris be completed within November 30 of this year.
There should be no illusion about the harmful consequences of contamination of the rivers by all kinds of debris, mostly non-biodegradable materials and harmful chemicals; the situation has been further compounded by the illegal structures most of which are responsible for polluting these rivers. One wonders why the authorities had to wait for a court directive or for that matter a public interest litigation instituted by a human rights group to do something that otherwise falls within their reference of work. We recall here the PM's directive to go after the land grabbers and polluters and restore the rivers to their original character.
The government's plans of river cleanup has been given a legal backing which means that the chances of people taking recourse to law to prevent the demolition has now become a remote possibility. It must now be ensured that the unholy nexus between some corrupt officials of the relevant agencies and the illegal occupants be severed so that new illegal ones do not crop up as soon as the old structures are removed, a phenomenon that is quite common in Bangladesh. The river banks were helped to be usurped in the first place by those that are responsible for preventing such occurrences looking the other way. This must not be allowed to happen in future.
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