Dhaka-Ctg highway blocked by locals

Agitating locals blocked the Dhaka-Chattogram Highway for five hours to protest the district administration's eviction drive that demolished long-standing illegal settlements in the Jungle Salimpur area of Chattogram city.

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in front of the Bangladesh Institute of Tropical and Infectious Disease (BITID) in the Fouzdarhat area at 1:15pm on Tuesday, triggering a 10-kilometre gridlock on the busy highway.

Initially, evicted people started their protest on the Baizid link road near the Asian University for Women around 12 noon. Then they went to the Fouzdarhat area and stopped the movement of both Dhaka and Chattogram-bound vehicles, police say.

Ashraful Karim, additional superintendent of police of Chattogram (Sitakunda circle), said, "Immediately after that, senior police and administration officials rushed to the spot and spoke to the protesters. Addressed by Sitakunda UNO Shahadat Hossian, the protesters left the highway and took up positions in nearby areas around 5:30pm."  

Protesters urged the government to restore power connections to the evicted settlements and sought ownership of the khas land (government owned fallow land, where nobody has property rights) from which they had been evicted.

However, local MP Didarul Alam got stuck in the traffic gridlock on the way to visit the spot.  

With the implementation of the Jungle Salimpur Master Plan, various establishments including Chattogram Central Jail, Divisional Forest Management Office, Sports Village, Iconic Mosque and Night Safari Park will be built there. 

In the course of recovering khas land, the district administration conducted eviction drives in different parts of the Jungle Salimpur area.

Prior to the drive, the district administration issued a notification asking residents in the illegal establishments built there to vacate the khas land by 20 August. Since then, power connections to the establishments have been cut down.

After the eviction drives were done, Upazila Chairman SM Al Mamun, Chattogram Police Commissioner Krishna Pada Roy, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police (Chittagong Range) Anwar Hossain, RAB-7 commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel MA Yusuf, the Superintendent of Chattogram police, and the Chattogram Deputy Commissioner visited Jungle Salimpur's Alinagar area on Sunday.