At least seven policemen, including two female personnel, were injured when slum dwellers resisted them during a drive to evict unauthorised shanties from public land in Pallabi of Mirpur on Wednesday.
The injured have been admitted to the Rajarbagh Police Hospital, said DMP’s Mirpur zone Deputy Commissioner Md Mostaq Sarkar.
After the attacks, the eviction drive resumed in the afternoon, he added.
According to police, around 50-bigha land of National Housing Authority had been illegally occupied by local influential and political figures, who set up and rent out shanties, garages, scrap metal shops, political club houses, and drug trading hotspots in the area.
NHA has earmarked the area, located in Bauniabadh area of Pallabi, for a project to construct 533 flats for slum dwellers.
Around 10am, a large number of police and administrative officials launched a drive at the Kalshi Steel Bridge area to reclaim the occupied section of the project area.
Abdul Baten, Jamaaet-e-Islami lawmaker in Dhaka-16 constituency, and an executive magistrate from the Public Works Department also joined the drive.
At one point, a group of slum dwellers and “enthusiastic locals” resisted the authorities, and abruptly started pelting brickbats at them.
Video footage showed the executive magistrate and police members frantically falling back in the face of the sudden attack.
