A sweltering struggle

Nearly a hundred people were sweltering in the midday boiling heat, waiting in line for about an hour to enter Lalbagh Shahi Mosque.

Housewife Nahid Akhtar, fourth-grader Zidan Ahmed Sayem and the others have been out in the sun since 11:30am.

They did not get in the queue to say prayers at the mosque. Rather, their eager wait is for precious drinking water, without which their lives have turned upside down for over seven years now. 

“We have been getting drinking water for my family from the mosque as the water, supplied by Wasa to home, has been really stinky,” said Nahid who lives in Killarmor area. 

Young boy Zidan of Dhaka Laboratory School has to shoulder the responsibility of fetching safe drinking water for the entire family by queuing up near the mosque.

“Since there's no other male member in my family and everybody else is busy with their work, I come to the mosque after I get off from school around 11:30am to collect the water,” said Zidan.

Mohammad Shukkur of Islambagh said thousands of other residents of Lalbagh's Killarmor, Islambagh and Kazi Reaz Uddin Road have also been going through this same ordeal for the last seven or eight years.

They are yet to see any remedy to their problem of getting filthy and unsafe drinking water with putrid stench. The complaints they made to the Dhaka Wasa (Water and Sewerage Authority) over the years, have apparently fallen in deaf ears.  

As most of the people in the neighbourhood cannot afford to buy expensive bottled water, the authorities of Lalbagh Shahi Mosque came to their rescue, Shukkur said.

The mosque authorities allow the locals get water from its taps for a total of three hours a day -- during the day from 12:00pm to 2:00pm and at night from 8:00pm to 9:00pm.

When contacted, Sujabot Ali, executive engineer of Wasa Zone 2, said, leaks in the worn out supply pipeline is the primary cause behind the water contamination in the area.   

Replacement work of Wasa's water supply lines is currently going on and they will start replacing supply pipes in Lalbagh area this December. The water contamination problem in the area would be resolved once the work is completed, he hoped.  

In the meantime, if any resident of the area files any written complaint with them, they would take necessary steps to solve it.