DCC bulldozes Green Del International School

Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) bulldozes the Green Del International School in Gulshan on Saturday evening. PHOTO: STAR

School authorities said some DCC staff with the help of Gulshan police entered the school compound Saturday evening behind the Wonderland Park without serving prior notice to them and destroyed the whole school in a two-hour devastation.

Leasee Zakia Rouf Chowdhury said they took the land on lease three terms for five years each and then two terms more for three years each. Recently, they applied for extending the lease for five more years to the authorities concerned prior to the ending of the existing lease period.

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"But, without any notice or information of any kind, DCC staff along with more than 100 police bulldozed the school at the directive of a magistrate," she said adding, the destruction of the school was carried out to realise the interest of an influential vested quarter.

However, DCC Mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka said the term of the lease, which was provided on yearly basis, was over 15 days ago.

He said the leasee took the land from DCC to make a nursery there, but they made a school.

"Actually they were not supposed to build the school there," he said.

The corporation was under pressure from different community to recover the land, he added.

"The Gulshan Society requested the city corporation to use the land for community welfare. So we evicted the occupants," the city mayor said.

Zakia also said the DCC has no right to bulldoze the school without prior notice. "Who will take the responsibility of about 300 students of the school? Where will they study now? Which school would admit them?" she questioned.

While bulldozing the school, the DCC men also allegedly took away valuables including air conditioners, refrigerators and other accessories worth around Tk 25 lakh.

The leasee demanded to the authorities concerned the compensation and reestablishment of the school.

Zakia Rouf Chowdhury alleged that a vested quarter in connivance with some dishonest officials of the DCC was conspiring to grab the land.

Already a signboard dubbing the land as 'Gulshan Park' was raised there but people in the neighbourhood are suspicious about the motive behind the sudden move, some alleging that the land would be later handed over to influential individuals as residential plots.

It has been reported in press in recent weeks that moves were underway to award prime city lands as residential plots to ministers, political leaders and influential people.

In this case, though the lease holder applied well in advance for a fresh extension of the lease period, it remained unclear what prompted the Dhaka City Corporation to rush and evict the leasee in such an unprecedented hurry just within 15 days of expiry of earlier lease period.