The High Court on Sunday ordered to stop the construction work of some houses on a piece of land locals claimed as a playground at Balaishimul of Kendua in Netrakona for three months.
The court also asked the deputy commissioner in Netrakona and 13 others to submit a report within 60 days explaining the reasons why changing the land class would not be illegal and why it would not be protected as a playground, said a press release.
A bench of Justice Mazibar Rahman Mia and Kazi Md Ejarul Haque Akondo passed the directive following a public interest write petition filed by the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association.
Lawyer Syeda Rizwana Hasan on behalf of BELA and deputy attorney general Arabindu Kumar Ray participated in the hearing before the court.
Arabindu informed the court that the government would construct only 12 houses out of 36.
Local people said that the government had taken a project to build houses for homeless and landless people on 1.8 acres of land that used to be a playground.
To build Asrayan Prakalpa, the local authorities changed the land class while locals demanded to keep the playground untouched.
When the issue was on the court to settle, the local authorities started the construction of houses, which sparked protests in the area.
One of the protesters, who was a member of the local union council, Bacchu Miah, said that the administration filed cases against villagers and was harassing them.
Abul Kalam AL Azad said that people had been using the land as a playground for years and the public demanded to keep it as it was.
Kendua upazila nirbahi officer Mahmuda Begum said that she did not get any copy of the order from the court but heard about it.
‘We will keep construction stopped according to the court order,’ she said.
Mahmuda said that the land was wrongly recorded as a playground when it was actually an abandoned plot of land that remained unused.
‘People never played here,’ she commented, quoting some locals who informed her.
She said that as the land was vacant, the government took the initiative to build a shelter centre for the poor.
