BNP leader Abdul Moyeen Khan protests BIWTA eviction drive in Narsingdi. Photo: BSS

NARSINGDI, Jan 26, 2025 (BSS) - BNP Standing Committee Member and former minister Dr. Abdul Moyeen Khan today protested the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority’s (BIWTA) eviction drive in Narsingdi alleging it severely affected poor people’s life and livelihood.

"Over the last 15 years, BIWTA has plundered billions of taka through sand theft and corruption. Now, they are conducting eviction drives in Ghorashal-Palash, destroying the livelihoods of poor people,” he told reporters after meeting with eviction affected people at
Ghorashal’s Saddam Bazar in Palash upazila.

Khan, who hailed from Narsingdi, added: “This is not justified by any law. Such exploitation of the poor cannot be part of a civilized legal system."

He said over the last 15 years, BIWTA visibly looted billions of taka from the country’s wetlands and now they were trying to use a legal pretext to evict poor people in Ghorashal.

“The poor people are subjected to oppression simply because they couldn’t bribe them. If they could have paid the bribe, the bulldozers would have stopped," Khan said.

He described the BIWTA drive as an attempt to discredit the current interim government and the state-run organisation virtually wants to establish an idea that people are being oppressed under this government.

Khan said in one day today, BIWTA demolished 800 establishments of poor people, affecting nearly 10,000 people and in carrying out their action they bypassed the local district administration and deployed corrupt officials from Dhaka.

“They have destroyed the lives of the poor. This has deprived them of honest ways to survive and pushed them into misery," he said.

Earlier, BIWTA conducted a day-long eviction drive to remove illegal structures along the banks of the Shitalakshya River. Around 300 shops were demolished during the operation.