C T Online Desk: Five organizations, including the Chittagong River and Canal Protection Movement, have organized a human chain demanding eviction of more than 1800 illegal structures along the Karnafuli river including fish market and dredging of the river. According to the order of the high court, this human chain has been held at the mouth of Chaktai canal to demand eviction of these illegal establishments.
Speakers at the human chain said that Karnafuli is dying. Occupying about 250 meters of river, illegal fish markets and ice mills have sprung up. Despite the dredging of the port capital, the ongoing Karnafuli depth measurement survey of the Chittagong River and Canal Protection Movement has shown that a huge char about 300 km south of the fish market, i.e. about three kilometers along the middle of the Karnafuli river, has risen. That is why the current of the river in this place is only 300 to 350 meters.
But in the Strategic Master Plan for protection of Karnafuli conducted by Asia Development Bank and Port Authority in 2014, the width of the river was about 935 meters.
A site inspection of the Karnafuli River shows fishermen fishing in the middle of the pillars of the Shah Amanat Bridge. The Karnafuli river is more than half full as fish markets have been established at the mouths of Chaktai and Rajakhali canals.
