Green activists on Saturday renewed their demand for cancelling the FDC鈥揚lassey section of the Dhaka Elevated Expressway that runs over Panthakunja Park and Hatirjheel.
The activists at a press conference at the Dhaka Reporters Unity alleged that the authorities were continuing the construction without environmental clearance in breach of a High Court ban.
The court ordered the ban on the construction on September 10, ruling that both the park and Hatirjheel should remain open to the public.
Professor Anu Muhammad, who spoke at the event, said that the interim government had hardly taken any action against the projects that go against the public interests although it earlier promised a re-evaluation of such projects of the Awami League government.
He added that in the name of development, forests, rivers, canals and hills were, instead, destroyed.
Anu Muhammad said that the advisers to the interim government had begun to justify such projects the way the previous government had done.
The speakers warned that the extension work had already damaged the park and waterbody and would worsen the environment and traffic in areas such as Kantaban, Nilkhet, Plassey, the University of Dhaka and the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.
The Bangladesh Institute of Planners president, Adil Muhammad Khan, said the extension was not in the original design but added later to make the project financially viable.
He added that it would serve only about 5 per cent of the people who own cars and add to the sufferings of ordinary people.
They said that they were not against the entire project but only the extension, which they said would have disastrous consequences.
Professor Giti Ara Nasreen, Professor Shayer Ghafur, writer Firoz Ahmed, researcher Pavel Partha, Panthakunja Prabhati Sangha general secretary Sirajuddin Tuhin and Bangladesh Tree Protection Movement coordinators Nayeem Ul Hasan and Amirul Rajib also spoke.
Bangladesh Tree Protection Movement activists earlier stayed inside Panthakunja Park for 168 days, beginning on December 14, 2024, demanding the cancellation of the extension.
