5 slum dwellers arrested over clash with police in Chattogram

Police have arrested five people who came for treatment at Chittagong Medical College Hospital after being injured by police firing during an eviction drive in Ali Nagar slum area of Salimpur in Sitakunda.

They were arrested for having connection with the clash that ensued Thursday (8 September), said Sitakunda police station Office-in-Charge Abul Kalam Azad.  

Police also filed two cases with Sitakunda police station Thursday on allegations of carrying out attacks on cops and obstructing government work, said the OC.

He said police arrested Md Ali Raj Hasan Sagar, 26, Amina Begum, 35, Amena Begum, 50, Mohammad Parvez, 27, and Mohammad Rasul, 20 in those cases.

Visiting ward No 20 and 26 at CMCH on Friday, our Chattogram correspondent found the seriously injured five arrestees were being guarded by two female and two male police personnel.

Sub-inspector of district police Nurul Alam, who has been on duty at CMCH, said they received an arrest order against those four.

The arrestees will be in the hospital until their recovery, Nurul Alam added.
Besides, a police source told The Business Standard that a person who was under treatment at the hospital was detained by the police and taken away from the hospital last night.

Noor Nahar, mother of Ali Raj Hasan Sagar, told TBS, "We protested when the people of the district administration started evicting our settlement. But the police opened fire directly.

"Doctors said Sagar was hit by at least 20 rubber bullets. Amid this police kept him under guard since morning," complained Noor Nahar.

At least 30 people, including a member of Bangladesh Ansar, were injured when police fired rubber bullets to disperse protesters during an eviction drive at Salimpur slums.

Police, however, did not confirm the number of injured persons in the clash but the slum-dwellers claimed that 30 men and women have been injured and some of whom are undergoing treatment at CMCH.

Locals in Salimpur also claimed that the district administration cut the power connection in the area on Thursday morning, prior to launching the raid.

According to police sources, a clash broke out between the slum-dwellers and the police when a team of the Chattogram district administration, led by magistrate Tauhidul Islam, carried out the drive in Salimpur's Chinnomul slums around 11 am.

Thousands of homeless people in Chattogram and nearby districts, who were forcibly displaced due to various reasons related to climate change, have been making settlements in the abandoned forests of Salimpur since 1990. This area is located just outside the Chattogram City Corporation.

In the past, thousands of displaced people have been evicted from at least 20 slums including Dewanhat slum, Batali Hill, Motijharna, Dhebar Par slum, Barishal slum, Laldiar Char, Noman slum in Chattogram city. Chinnomul and Ali Nagar became the address of these evicted people as well.

Apart from various coastal upazilas of Chattogram, climate refugees and low-income people from Cox's Bazar, Barishal, Bhola, Noakhali, and Cumilla also settled in the area.

About 70% of the slum dwellers of Chattogram lost their habitats due to climate change, said Reza Kaiser, former chief urban planner of Chittagong City Corporation. They are all low-income people, mostly garment workers, rickshaw pullers and day labourers, he said.

According to Chittagong Mohanagar Chinnomul Bastibasi Samannoy Sangram Parishad, Chinnomul and Ali Nagar slums are currently home to about 24,000 families, where about 1 lakh people live. However, according to Chittagong district administration data, there were only 4,544 families in 2010.

This settlement in the jungle of Salimpur is controlled by the Samannoy Parishad, which was formed in 2004.

In the last 18 years, this organisation divided the government khas land into 11 parts and developed thousands of plots. They built roads, schools, mosques and madrasas in their own way without any government facilities.

The main road, which is about two kilometres long, has been constructed by the residents with their own funds. The residents have been using commercial transmission lines after not being able to get residential electricity connections legally.

Chinnomul and Ali Nagar settlements came into the limelight last year when the Chittagong Development Authority opened a link road, which was constructed by cutting down 18 hills, with the Dhaka-Chattogram highway from Bayezid, which is located next to Chinnomul.

On 12 September, a meeting, led by the prime minister's principal secretary Ahmad Kaikaus, is scheduled to be held at the Prime Minister's Office to formulate a master plan for taking up multiple developmental projects by clearing 3,100 acres of land in Salimpur jungle.

The Chittagong district administration wants to build several government facilities, including central jail, Novo theatre, hospital, national information centre and a night safari park there.

The eviction drive began to free up space. In August, the district administration demolished nearly 200 houses of 170 low-income families in Ali Nagar near Chinnamul in nine eviction raids. At the time, the administration ordered the rest of the residents to move out of the place.