The number of river grabbers in the country now stands at about 50 thousand. The grabbers included influential persons, political leaders, social leaders, powerful quarters, developers and several government and private companies.
This was disclosed by the National River Conservation Commission (NRCC) in the meeting of the permanent standing committee held on Wednesday (Nov.20) at the Sangsad Bhavan. The meeting chaired by Maj. (Retired) Rafiqul Islam was also attended by Shajahan Khan, Ranjit Kumer Das, M. Abdul Latif, Dr. Samiluddin Ahmed Shimul and Md. Aslam Hossain Sawdagar and officials of the ministry.
The meeting decided to free all the grabbed rivers from the illegal occupants. It was decided to serve notices to them to free those illegally occupied.
Indeed, this is the most comprehensive verdict by any court in the world that gives such specific directions to protect the rights of rivers or any other natural entity.
And following this instruction NRCC is working on it as a safeguard, Dr Mujibur Rahman Hawladar, the Chairman of National River Conservation Commission said to barta24.com that the list of the grabbers was earlier handed over to the ministry for necessary actions.