Protesters have reiterated their demand to retreat from the decision to set up a police station building on Tentultala field in Kalabagan and return the playground to locals.
Joining a protest rally on Wednesday, human rights, environment and cultural activists threatened to lay siege to the home ministry and Dhaka South City Corporation unless the authority does not back down from this decision.
The protesters also planted 14 native trees along the border of the field.
“Here are those who play here, who are the real owner of the field. They are protesting against the occupation of the field. We are negotiating with the government, talking with the government high ups,” said, the former advisor of the defunct caretaker government Rasheda K Chowdhury.
“We are in a situation where we are dying of suffocation. Where the new generation will go if their playground is occupied? They said Rajuk had given approval for the construction of the building, but Rajuk says they do not know anything about it. So how is the police station building constructed here,” She said.
Meanwhile, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said, the Tentultala field in the capital’s Kalabagan area was never a playground.
“Tentultala was never a playground. It was always an abandoned land of the Public Works Department (PWD),” the minister said on Wednesday at the secretariat.
“The DC office allocated the Tentultala land to the police. If the city corporation can give an alternative land, we will consider,” he added.
Earlier, on the issue of Tentultala playground, several eminent citizens, including urbanist Iqbal Habib and environmentalist Syeda Rizwana Hasan came to meet the home minister at the secretariat.
The Home Minister said that he would try his best to protect the ground. He said he would talk to the appropriate authorities and the Prime Minister about our proposal to protect the field,” Iqbal Habib revealed to the press following the meeting.
