Abbas was thought to be ideal for the job, as he was born and raised in Dhaka, a former mayor of Dhaka City Corporation and lawmaker of the Motijheel-Sabujbagh-Khilgaon constituency.

This influential and comparably young minister had the funds, power and opportunity to solve several problems that have for years given rise to an alarming rate of unplanned urbanisation.

But Abbas chose the easier way. He mysteriously shied away from making major decisions for reforms and chose to involve himself mainly in the business of real estates and various commercial ventures.

In March 2005, he created a "BNP village" by allocating 94 plots out of 100 in Uttara and Banani to ministers, state ministers, BNP leaders and activists.

A site in Khilgaon, earmarked in the master plan as a public park, was allocated to some of Abbas' family members under a scheme called Rehabilitation Zone on the pretext that they were affected and lost their land when Kamalapur railway station was built over 40 years ago.

It is also alleged that Abbas oversaw the leasing out of some petrol pumps in the city to his relatives.

The Ministry of Housing and Public Works under his leadership involved experts from the Institute of Architects Bangladesh, Bangladesh Paribesh Andolan (Bapa) and Rehab to amend the Building Construction Rules.

It was approved and gazetted in April 2006. But Abbas had other ideas in mind as implementation of the new rules was deferred until December 2006.

Abbas and his associates hurriedly got plans approved for at least five multi-story buildings in Khilgaon, Shahjahanpur and Shahidbagh. The Daily Star obtained the Rajuk approval numbers of these buildings. Ministerial sources said all these approved plans, including two for two twenty-storey buildings, did not have clearance from the Department of Environment, Wasa, Desa or CAAB as required by the law.

The then minister had thought about such a plan much earlier, sources said. Months ago he took personal initiatives to stop construction of a police cooperative market in Rajarbagh in front of his project area. He instead handed over an acre of land to the police cooperative in Gulshan for Tk 1,001 only.

The Gulshan land is directly situated over a project to build a connecting elevated road for easing traffic in the city.

The ministry also formulated Private Housing Land Development Rules, a guideline to streamline real estate developers, which are filling up thousands of acres of wetland and flood flow zones.

Just before handing over power Abbas was reported to have used the rules secretly to amass fortune for his campaign in the next elections. He suddenly embarked on authorising leading real estate developers to fill up thousands of acres of flood flow zones, wetland, retention ponds and natural canals in and around the capital.

Ironically, Abbas had earlier instructed Rajuk to file cases with various police stations against the same developers for violating the Wetland Protection Act, 2000.

The city slid further into chaos in terms of development in the last five years under Abbas' watch.

He has conveniently kept silent as major roads were declared viable for commercial use without any guidelines. Height restrictions on building construction in different zones were secretly negotiated. He completely overlooked the aspect of parking facilities and construction rules, while also continuing to allow new commercial buildings indiscriminately.

Besides, he kept quiet as a new trend of converting footpaths into parking lots swept the city. Slowly life in the capital city has been pushed into a virtual impasse.

Most people now consider Abbas' contribution as total failure. His failure to address the staggering problems of the cities is more talked about than his involvement in corruption and nepotism, which too weigh heavily on him.

Critics within his own administration find him "a man without vision craving for instant publicity."

A top official of his ministry said although Mirza Abbas hardly meddled in the lucrative "transfer business of engineers", as happened with his predecessors, he was adamant about finding new projects for his supporters.

Abbas used his office in preparations for the general elections, awarding several projects amounting to crores of taka to his supporters in his constituency, especially at the Banasree housing project.

He influenced Rajuk to release over Tk 20 crore to build and repair 15 roads in Banasree. Never before had Rajuk paid for developing a private project.

Again, he forced Rajuk to release Tk 12 crore for construction of foot over-bridges in his constituency, a job always carried out by the Dhaka City Corporation.

The work was awarded to a company called Chittagong Dry Dock in violation of all rules. Sources said the project was initiated without any procedure whatsoever. Abbas even influenced Rajuk to pay an advance of Tk 7 crore to the company. Rajuk sources said they are now fearful about the foot over-bridge project as they had no experience in such structures.

It was in 2003 when Abbas made headlines. He took a 'firm' decision not to allow Jamuna Group to fill up the flood plains of Ashulia for their housing project.

His determination to stop the real estate giant was instantly welcomed by the people. But the joy was short-lived. At one point, it became clear that Abbas was merely 'settling some old scores' with the Jamuna Group using his office.

For the months and years that followed, city dwellers and terrified landowners in its peripheries watched helplessly as big developers took over thousands of acres of flood plains and agricultural land and openly filled them up. All the while, Abbas remained a silent spectator.

He however maintained that Rajuk filed cases against 'everyone' under the Flood Plain Protection Act and those are now pending with the courts of justice.

In plot allocation, there are numerous allegations of corruption against Abbas. In sector 6 of Uttara, he allocated three plots on Road 13 measuring 3.3 bighas to a company he is closely associated with.

The land was given to the company for building a school under a scheme called "institutional allocation". The Tk 50-lakh-per-katha plot was handed over for just over Tk 5 lakh.

In a "Note of Dissent" by the parliamentary standing committee on housing and public works ministry it was observed that the government had incurred a loss of Tk 59 crore in that plot allocation.

Similar allegations of plot allocation in throwaway prices to his own men in Karwan Bazar, Tongi Industrial Area, Joar Shahara, Baridhara J-Block and Badda are rampant at the ministry and Rajuk.

When Abbas took over, he knew well that one of his first priorities was to bring reforms in Rajuk to check its phenomenal corruption, which was responsible for unplanned urbanisation and sufferings to the common people.

He was also expected to address the huge corruption crippling the Public Works Department under him. Town planners, architects and environmentalists say had Abbas been willing, he could have greatly benefited from his image as a political heavyweight with his influence over Jubo Dal and Dhaka city BNP to bring in at least some changes in Rajuk and PWD.

They said Abbas had the opportunity to finish the Detail Area Planning (DAP) to enable town planners and Rajuk to control construction mayhem in the city.

Abbas, however, told The Daily Star five years are too little a time to wipe out corruption whose roots date back 40 years.

Doing nothing to improve the situation, Abbas instead kept Rajuk under his firm control, putting selected persons -- engineers from the Bangladesh Railway -- at its top.

His bond with the railway is quite old, with the Kamalapur station and railway officers' colony situated within his own locality and some of his near ones having contracts for railway supplies.

In his inner circle, Abbas is known as a sympathetic man with wide connections, but his critics allege he has his sympathy also stretched towards individuals controlling the Sayedabad bus terminal activities.

As a cabinet minister, he became the talk of the town when he allegedly sheltered the sacked officer-in-charge of Motijheel Police Station, main accused in the killing of college student Qamrul Islam Momin on September 13, 2005 over a land dispute.

In June the same year, he was also one of the accused in the extra-judicial killing of a Jubo League activist, Abul Kalam Azad Suman, in a case filed by the victim's father.

In his own locality, he is generally regarded as a "very helpful man". But some people have their grievances against him too. A businessman in Khilgaon speaking anonymously alleged Abbas used his influence to change the original design of the country's first-ever flyover in Khilgaon to protect his party activists' residential plots.

By omitting a loop of the flyover, he has deprived a large section of the city population of its advantages, he added.