Gulshan Lake grabbing going on unabated

Nearly 40 percent of the lake at the posh Gulshan, Banani and Baridhara residential areas has been grabbed by some influential people over the years defacing the panoramic view of the area and degrading environment.
Though Rajdhani Unnayan Kartipakkha (RAJUK) is supposed to preserve the lake and protect it from encroachers, it miserably failed to do it on different lame excuses, according to residents of these satellite towns.
The RAJUK is a silent spectator to the incidence of lake grabbing for some obvious reasons, they noted.
After the new civilian government came to power about six months ago, a new breed of land grabbers have emerged to encroach upon lake for building high rise residential and commercial buildings. The new encroachers of lake lands include a sitting HC judge, real estate developers, relatives of senior army and civil officials and influential political leaders, sources in RAJUK said.
The lake is being gobbled up by vested interests despite HC ruling against its grabbing.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in a judgement in 2003 directed RAJUK to demarcate the Gulshan-Baridhara Lake and acquire lands on its fringes to conserve it.
In another order in 2006, the HC prohibited earth filling in the lake.
But the order of the courts in this respect is being observed more in violation than in compliance, a resident of Gulshan remarked.
The lake grabbers take recourse to some set patterns for constructing buildings in the lake. They first construct boundary wall around the grabbed lake and then put up signboard claiming its ownership with false documents. Thereafter, they apply to RAJUK for the lease of the grabbed lake on the strength of the fake documents. In this way they managed to get lease of the lake by bribing the concerned RAJUK officials heavily. Soon after getting lease of the lake with false documents, the grabbers start building palatial commercial and residential buildings spending staggering sum of money.
But when the underhand deal is leaked out, the same officials of the RAJUK, who leased out lake to the grabbers in exchange for hefty sum of money, approached the court seeking to stop construction of the buildings. The court then issues order to show cause as to why the construction of building or buildings in the lake should not be stopped. But during the interim period of the show cause notice, the grabbers complete the construction of the entire building.
After completing the construction of the building in the lake, the builders try to secure to interim injunction to stop its demolition. Many of the builders have so far been successful in saving their buildings built illegally taking advantage of legal tangles, a lawyer said.
When contacted, some senior RAJUK officials said the lake encroachers are more powerful than RAJUK itself and they have the power and money to manipulate everything in their favour rightly or otherwise.

Courtesy of The New Nation