Dhaka's fight for green spaces

[DHAKA] When a private sports club in an upmarket Dhaka neighbourhood "grabbed" a children's park for development this year, it sparked a wave of enraged protests rarely seen in impoverished Bangladesh.

Hundreds of parents, former national sports stars and environmental activists staged sit-ins for days, demanding the club hand back the park - a green oasis for residents in one of the world's most densely populated and polluted cities.

"This is the lone ground for the area's kids. Yet the club grabbed it as if it was private property," former Bangladesh cricket captain Gazi Asharf Lipu, who joined the protests, said.

The protests, which made front page news in Bangladesh, underlined the plight of Dhaka's m…