In just a decade (From 2014 - 2024), the land has been filled and several businesses have sprouted there.

Why is the law to stop illegal sand extraction not enforced?

The National River Conservation Commission has decided not to publish a list of 37,000 new encroachers of 48 rivers and the environment activists say protecting their identities is tantamount to siding with the grabbers.

One must recognise the fact that grabbers in Bangladesh have taken the enterprise to the highest level of creativity and perfection.

Ensuring accountability of government agencies in-charge of conserving rivers, empowering National River Conservation Commission (NRCC), enhancing the institutional capacity, and executing concerned laws with political commitment are some of the essential factors to save the country’s rivers, speakers in a roundtable discussion have said.

A river under onslaught. An open defiance of a High Court order. And inept river custodians.

The government yesterday unveiled two decade-long masterplans to protect five rivers in Dhaka and two in Chattogram against grabbing and pollution, and enhance their navigability.

Nothing seems to scare away the river grabbers. Amid impassioned calls from the judiciary, environmentalists and the media to save the country's last surviving rivers, a private company is building two slipways in the Meghna river in Munshiganj.

River encroachers cannot run in any elections or get bank loans, the High Court has ordered, in efforts to save rivers from greedy grabbers. The HC also ordered the government to make a list of every grabber in the country and publish the list in the media to expose them to the public.