The DSCC officials, led by three magistrates, began the drive around 2pm as law enforcers dispersed the shop owners by firing several rounds of teargas.

“We demolished over 250 shops today (Tuesday). We’ll continue our drive till Thursday to evict all the illegal structure of the market,” DSCC Chief Estate Officer Russel Sabrin told UNB.

Earlier, the DSCC officials along with huge law enforcers took a position in front of the market around 10:30am to demolish 911 shops that built illegally.

But they could not launch the drive as the shop owners started demonstration there and created an obstruction to the operation.

As the presence of law enforcers increased with the passage of time, the DSCC authorities tried to evict a shop in front of the market around 12:45pm, but the unruly protestors started throwing brickbats towards the law enforcers.

At first the police retreated and then brought the situation under control by firing blank gunshots.

The DSCC authorities restarted the drive around an hour later which was also obstructed by the shop owners, forcing the law enforcers to fire teargas and thus dispersed the troublemakers. 

DSCC Mayor Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh decided to launch the eviction drive following the report of a committee that 911 shops were set up illegally at Fulbaria Super Market-2 behind Nagar Bhaban.

The shop owners, however, claimed that the previous DSCC Mayor Sayeed Khokon allotted these shops in exchange for a large sum of money.

Also read: Overhead cables of DSCC to go underground by November: Taposh