Rajuk starts demolition as Dhaka lives in fear

Tilted city buildings
Rajuk starts demolition as Dhaka lives in fear
Amid building collapse fears gripping the city residents, the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha on Monday began pulling down an unauthorised seven-storey residential complex at Begunbari, four days after it started to tilt.
The owner himself, being asked by RAJUK, began the demolition a day earlier on Sunday.
The building started tilting on Friday. RAJUK notified the owner to pull down the building the same day. It sent him a similar notice two months back also, said officials.
The fear of building collapse has been haunting over 160 million residents of the capital city ever since an unauthorised five storey residential building at Begunbagri fell on tin shed houses killing at least 25 people and leaving several others injured as they were asleep on the night of June 1.
Suddenly, said city residents, Rajuk has swung ito action. But it took the Begunbari tragedy to sentitise the city development authority.
RAJUK said it had appointed three committees, and entrusted one to find out the cause behind Thursday’s devastating fire at Nimatali and the two others to oversee building demolition at Begunbari and Nakhalpara.
A four-member committee headed by Rajuk director for development control Sheikh Abdul Mannan has been given a week’s time to find out the cause behind the Nimtali fire that killed at least 118 and left many more injured.
Rajuk appointed a five-member committee, headed by superintendent engineer Raihanul Ferdaus to oversee the demolition work at Begunbari.
Another RAJUK team headed by superintendent engineer Anwar Hossain will oversee the demolition at Nakhalpara, said officials.
Rajuk authorised officer Shafiqul Islam said that the work of pulling down a tilted building at the Nakhalpara Samabay Samity Market neighbourhood begins either this week end or at the beginning of the next week.
RAJUK, they said, asked the owner to pull down a tilted building at KB Road in Gandaria in seven days.
After Rajuk served a notice on Friday, the owner started pulling down the seven-storey residential building at Begunbari and the RAJUK demolition squad, led by executive magistrate Rokon Ud-dowla joined the work a day later on Monday.
RAJUK sent 30 labourers, escorted by some 30 police personnel, to the spot in the morning.
Rajuk authorised officer-2 Shafiqul Islam, executive engineer Jamal Akhtar Bhuiyan and senior police officials oversaw the demolition.
After two days of demolition, ending today [Tuesday], Rajuk would leave it to the owners to complete the task, Rokon Ud-dowla said.
Police on Friday arrested Sirajul Islam, the owner of the building, at 46/1/A, Begunbari on the charge of constructing an unauthorised building.
He was sent to jail on Sunday.
As demolition was in progress, his son, Yasir Ahmed, told reporters that though several 10 or 12-storey buildings, built in the locality without permission, remain undisturbed, all the wrath of Rajuk was directed on their building.
The police evacuated the families living in the building, after it tilted, fearing that it would collapse any time.
Faulty design and weak foundation were blamed for the collapse.
The four buildings, the two at Begunbari and one each at Nkhalpara and Gandaria were unauthorised constructions like over 15,000 other buildings in the capital city.
RAJUK, said officials, had earlier filed cases against the owners of the two buildings at Begunbari and the one at Nakhalpara for building unauthorised houses ignoring its notices.

Courtesy of NewAge