Chattogram commuters suffer amid heat, transport strike

Four young men from Dhaka got off the train at Chattogram on Sunday morning only to find themselves stranded. Walking around the rail station area, they couldn’t find any bus taking them to Cox’s Bazar. Finally, they headed to the Shah Amanat Bridge. Unfortunately, no bus was there either as transport owners and workers in Chattogram are conducting a 48-hour strike. Like the four young men, many others were found waiting for buses at the counters adjacent to the Shah Amanat Bridge amid the boiling weather. But those coming from Dhaka and bound for Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban were facing the greatest difficulties. No bus left Chattogram city for Cox’s Bazar, Rangamati, Bandarban and Khagrachhari, while no bus came from those districts to Chattogram on Sunday morning either. Dhaka-bound buses were not running from Chattogram. “Four of us came to Chattogram from Dhaka by train to visit Cox’s Bazar. Some buses will go to Cox’s Bazar tomorrow, but not today. People suggested we may get a bus [to travel to Cox’s Bazar] near the Shah Amanat Bridge. But we have been waiting here without finding one,” said Raihan Uddin, a tourist from Dhaka.On Saturday, the ‘Greater Chattogram Public Transport Owners and Workers Unity Council’ called for a 48-hour transport strike in five districts amid protests at the Chattogram University of Engineering and Technology over the death of two students in a road crash between a bus and motorcycle. “We’re observing an all-out strike to push for our four-point demands. No transport is moving along any of the routes,” said Mohammed Musa, secretary of the council. He said they would have a meeting with the deputy commissioner on Sunday afternoon. “Let’s see to what extent our demands are met,” he said. The council called the strike to protest the arrests of linemen and other transport workers, CUET students vandalising and torching transports on the Chattogram-Kaptai highway, and the government’s raids to find unfit transports. Transport workers are barring the small number of public transports on the streets, people complained. A bus driver said protesters blocked his bus near the Shah Amanat Bridge after he brought passengers from Banshkhali in the morning. People travelling to Dhaka also faced trouble. “A large number of passengers are waiting to travel, but our buses are not running,” said Robi Hossain, counter manager of Unique Paribahan’s Dhaka-Chattogram route.WHY THE STRIKE On Apr 22, Shanto Saha from the 20th batch and Taufiq Hossain from the 21st batch of the civil engineering department at the Chattogram University of Engineering and Technology (CUET) died when their motorcycle crashed into a ‘Shah Amanat Paribahan’ bus. A third student was severely injured. The CUET students blocked part of the Chattogram-Kaptai highway to protest their peers’ deaths and vandalised several Shah Amanat Paribahan buses. The local administration held a meeting on Tuesday and made decisions regarding the compensation for the families of the dead and the injured student. Also, they decided to meet some of the student protesters’ other demands, including expanding roads. On Wednesday, police arrested the driver of the Shah Amanat bus that hit the motorcycle. The students, however, continued their protest demanding a compensation of Tk 20 million for the families of the dead. As the vandalism and torching of vehicles continued on Thursday, the CUET authorities announced the university closed for an indefinite time and instructed students to leave the residential halls. The protesters blocked the vice chancellor and some of the senior faculty members on the campus on the same day and locked all the departments. In response, the CUET authorities backtracked and allowed the students to stay in the residential halls. The students blocked the roads again on Saturday morning. Amid their protest, the Sramik Malik Oikya Parishad called for the transport strike after a meeting.
Published on: 2024-04-28 11:39:28.165687 +0200 CEST