Following a deadly landslide that claimed the lives of 127 people in Chittagong in 2007, port city authorities took Tk 10,000 each from 33 families of a landslide-prone slum five years ago, promising to relocate them to an apartment building. The building was completed in 2016, but now the Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) wants to move its own office there temporarily, as its permanent office is supposedly being renovated, while these families live in makeshift shanties near the apartment waiting still for the safe living space that they were promised.

We are appalled by the entire episode. Firstly by the fact that the apartment has been vacant for two years after completion, and now that these people are being given a raw deal by people in power whose duty it is to protect the helpless. These families comprised mostly of economically marginalised people, who had to scrape everything they had just to come up with the money they paid to the CCC. Yet, the CCC is unabashedly betraying not only its promise to them, but also abdicating its duty to the poor.

But regardless, the fact remains that these families had paid the CCC in exchange for this block, and the CCC's sudden desire to now go back on its words with complete disregard for the plight of these poor people is unacceptable.

That the CCC office is being renovated is no excuse for it to make these people suffer any longer, nor for it to violate its agreement. And so we urge the government to direct the CCC to hand over the apartment block to these families immediately.