BANGLADESH

The Public Works Department (PWD) started demolishing a shrine and several associated structures, all deemed to be unauthorised, near Central Shaheed Minar on Saturday following the High Court's order on Feb 22.

"A small part of the shrine has been demolished. But the grave and the adjacent mosque are untouched," magistrate Al Amin, who is leading the demolition work, told .

"The High Court will be notified of the drive," he added.

The demolition work began in the presence of PWD officials, Dhaka University officials and a large posse of police personnel.

"The demolition work is going on without any obstruction. No one tried to stop (the demolition work)," officer-in-charge of Shahbagh police station Sirajul Islam told journalists.

A correspondent reported from the spot that two lavatories at the rear end of the shrine (adjacent to the Nursing Hostel boundary), a kitchen-cum-storeroom, rooms of the mosque's imam and the shrine server on western part of the shrine, the shrine's main gate, ablution place, water tanks and several small establishments have been pulled down.

The bench of justices A H M Shamsuddin Chowdhury and Jahangir Hossain had issued the order on Feb 22 to demolish the illegal establishments, after hearing a petition filed by historian Prof Muntasir Mamun.

Mamun's lawyer Manzill Murshid told that the 'shrine' of 'saint Tel Shah' was built illegally on a 20-katha land of Shaheed Minar. "The court ordered pulling down the shrine. But it retained the grave," he said.

Abdul Mannan, a devotee at the shrine, said, "Following the High Court order, demolition work is going on. The main 'majar' (shrine) or the mosque has not been touched."

A Feb 20 report in the newspaper 'Kaler Kantha' quoted former students of Dhaka Medical College, which is beside Shaheed Minar, saying there had been no shrine earlier. There was only a grave of a class IV employee of the college, and some people raised structures on the grave and turned it into a shrine in the 1990s, they told the daily.

The report added that the shrine is built on land that is part of the four acres allotted for Shaheed Minar.

It said the monument for language martyrs has been endangered by a plan of the 'shrine traders' to build a dome on the grave of a 'so-called' pir (saint) and a complex beside it.