No Hope Market, Mirpur 10 footpaths now empty

Avenue-2 in C Block of Section 10 in the capital’s Mirpur area. At around 3:00 pm yesterday, Friday, a battery-powered auto-rickshaw stopped near the water tank. Two women were passengers. One was taking out money from her bag to pay the fare, while the other was looking around.

There were no shops anywhere along the road or footpaths, nor were there any hawkers or mobile vendors.

The area was so empty that the women appeared somewhat hesitant about getting off the rickshaw. The familiar place looked completely different from what they had known for so long.

Eventually, they paid the fare and got off the rickshaw. Speaking to them, it was learnt that they had come to Hope Market in Mirpur 10 to buy clothes.

They had bought clothes from here before, but were surprised to find no sign of the shops when they arrived. They did not know that the authorities had conducted a drive in the area on Wednesday to evict hawkers and mobile vendors from the footpaths and roads.

There is a building called Hope Plaza in the area. The mobile market that had operated for years on the roads and footpaths around the building became known as Hope Market.

Both women who came shopping yesterday, Friday were students. They live in a women’s hostel in Shewrapara in the capital.

One of them is Suraiya Mim and the other is Naushin Jahan. They expressed some disappointment at being unable to shop after coming to Hope Market. However, they also said they liked seeing the footpaths and roads clean and unobstructed.

Suraiya Mim said, “There was no way to understand that this road was actually this wide or that there was a footpath beside it for people to walk on.”

Naushin Jahan said, “The empty space now makes it clear how much trouble local residents had to face because of the hawkers’ shops occupying the footpaths and roads.”

A visit to the Hope Market area yesterday, Friday afternoon found no mobile shops on the road. The footpaths were also clear. There were no sheets of polythene or tarpaulins tied to wooden and bamboo structures overhead to serve as makeshift roofs.

Pedestrians were walking comfortably along the wide footpaths. The road also looked open and unobstructed. The same scene could be seen across several kilometres from the Mirpur 10 roundabout towards Section 13 of Mirpur. Hawkers’ shops had disappeared from the roads and footpaths around Hope Market and the surrounding areas.

At around 9:30 am on Wednesday, Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) launched a drive to clear illegal occupancies from the footpaths between the Mirpur 10 roundabout and Hope market.

At one point, hawkers and shopkeepers clashed with police and city corporation staff. During the clashes, three DNCC vehicles were set on fire and a police vehicle was vandalised. Media workers also came under attack.

Later, around noon, DNCC Administrator Shafiqul Islam Khan visited the scene. In his presence, the authorities cleared the makeshift shops from both sides of the footpaths along the road from Mirpur 10 to Mirpur 13.

Before the drive, hawkers had occupied large sections of the roads and footpaths around hope market, including Lanes 11/1 and 11/2 in Block B of Section 10 in Mirpur, the footpath beside Baitul Kudddus Jame Masjid, the area around Mirpur Adarsha Girls’ High School, and Avenue-2 in Block C.

They had set up shops by tying bamboo and wooden structures to the boundary walls of the footpaths and covering them with polythene sheets and tarpaulins.

Temporary shops had also been set up in two to three rows inside the main road. These shops mainly sold women’s and children’s clothing, shoes, jewellery, cosmetics and various other products. There were also stalls selling fuchka, chotpoti and fried snacks.

Local residents said hawkers had occupied the entire footpath on both sides of the approximately 200-metre stretch from Avenue-2 in Block C to Lane 6. No shops could be seen there during a visit yesterday, Friday. Pieces of bamboo, wood and tarpaulin from the shops demolished on Wednesday were still lying around.

Farida Begum was walking along the footpath with her four-year-old son, Afsar. She has been living in a house on Lane 6 for around two years. Farida said, “It was impossible to walk along this road and footpath before. There used to be a huge crowd of buyers and sellers, especially from the afternoon until night. Now I can walk without any obstruction. My son can also walk by himself.”

Rafiqul Islam, a resident of Lane 11/2 in Block B beside Hope Market, said, “We were living in such unbearable trouble! And now I feel so relieved that I cannot put it into words. I feel at peace when I leave home now.”

Rafiqul said he hoped the footpath and road would remain free of illegal occupation and urged the city corporation to keep an eye on the area. He said, “I hope the footpath and road remain free of illegal occupation. They should not fall into the hands of illegal occupiers again.”