About 10 years ago, two Mariam Towers -- one at Baridhara and the other at Shahjadpur in Badda -- were built on the filled-up portions of the lake in a bid that blocked water flow.

Taking advantage of the earlier land-grab, eight encroachers have built the part of the lake into plots, with some reported to have tried to sell them at high price and others trying to get Rajuk approval.

A signboard on a corrugated house on the lake reads: Tahmina Begum & Co will sell five kathas of land and interested parties can contact by telephone.

The real owner of the plot is a senior police official, who would not give his name, and claimed to have Rajuk clearance in a telephone talk with Star City.

But Badsha Mia, another owner, will not sell his plot but will build a house. "I am waiting for clearance from Rajuk," Badsha said.

On the list of grabbers also figures an Awami League leader who occupied a big plot close to Mariam Tower-2, locals said. The AL leader denied his part in the land grab.

Iqbal Uddin Chowdhury, chairman of Rajuk, the city development agency, said, "We have filed cases against these grabbers. These plots cannot have private owners under the wetland protection act 2000, let alone building any structure there."

"To build the proposed walkway along the lake, we will acquire 40 feet of the lakeside land," Chowdhury said.

Some other grabbers, claiming to be the owners of part of the lake, built houses at 104 Gulshan Road, throwing up a concrete wall.

The locals alleged that the wall was erected a few days ago, although Rajuk's four private security guards were on the watch around. The grabbers sank bamboo poles into the ground to demarcate their area, but the guards did not resist them.

A woman who lives there told Star City, asking not be named, that she and her brothers were trying to sell the land.

"People are coming to buy it but feel discouraged, as it is lowland. If we can fill the land, they will purchase it at high price," she said.

"They are all illegal occupants. We will launch a drive in a few days to resist encroachment on the lake," Chowdhury said.

In an effort to reclaim 31.34 acres of the same lake, Rajuk on August 7 filed a case with the High Court against the land ministry, Rajuk sources said.

The land ministry in gazette notifications in 1999 and 2001 released some lakeside plots from Rajuk and handed them back to the previous owners.

In 1963-64, the then Dhaka Improvement Trust (DIT) (now Rajuk) had acquired the plots under the Town Improvement Act 1953 to develop the Gulshan Housing Project.