Don't target vehicles during shutdowns, 'road blockades'

Transport operators in the public and private sectors have requested activists, members and supporters of different political parties and organisations not to target vehicles during any of their street campaigns including strikes, shutdowns and 'road blockades'.

Following extensive damages to vehicles, most of the private transport companies, and even the state-owned Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC), have been compelled to curtail their respective fleet of vehicles, operators said on Sunday.

Besides transport companies including the BRTC, Bangladesh Railway (BR) has also been forced to curtail the number of carriages from several trains as dozens of railway coaches and wagons were damaged during the recent political violence, according to relevant officials at the BR.

Many owners of private vehicles in the big cities are now forced to use hired ones, at least temporarily, as their cars have been damaged in the recent spate of political violence.

Transports including CNG (Compressed Natural Gas)-run three-wheelers or rickshaws are now their mode of transport.

Several hundred private vehicles including those used for public transportations under private transport companies, and dozens of buses and trucks belonging to the BRTC have either been burned or damaged before, during or after the opposition-led general strikes across the country over the last one year.

However, the attacks on vehicles have intensified since January this year when the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) started giving verdicts against those engaged in crimes against humanity during 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

 "We are compiling the details regularly to update the figure of private and public transports damaged in political violence," a senior official at the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority said.

Besides striking political activists, agitated members of the public, mainly industrial workers and students, also often engage in vandalising vehicles in case of any street accidents involving their colleagues or class mates, police said.

Meanwhile, besides carriages and wagons, railway tracks and a number of locomotives have also been burned or damaged during the recent strikes, said BR officials.

A passenger train became a target of sabotage recently while it was travelling at night to Chittagong with some 600 passengers, near Comilla. None, however, was killed, though dozens were injured in the derailment, thanks to the cautious driving of the train by experienced loco-masters.

 "At least two dozens of carriages, including some air-conditioned ones, have been burned or severely damaged over the two months," a senior official at Bangladesh Railway said without giving details.

Besides carriages, nearly a kilometre-long railway track was also damaged at different spots across the country, leading to a huge financial loss for the railway, he said.

Railway officials claimed that vandalising, burning and causing damages to carriages, locomotives and tacks have destroyed railway properties worth billions of Taka.

Meanwhile BRTC has alone incurred a loss of Tk 250 million over the last four months, as activists burned and damaged more than 150 buses including several double-deckers.

 "It is our fervent call to all concerned not to burn or damage public and private vehicles including cars, buses, trucks, tankers and lorries during any political campaign or public protests," a leader of Dhaka Bus Truck Owners Association made an appeal.

 "We look to support from political parties in our favour, and hope there will be no more attacks on our properties, including cars," said a businessman in Shantinagar Area.

Several vehicles in private use or those pressed into public transport services are, almost routinely, being burned or damaged on the eve of every strike across the country.

Source: http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/index.php?ref=MjBfMDVfMTNfMTNfMV85MF8xNjkyNjY=