Microbus still on the road after 24 hours

Upon arriving at capital’s Kalyanpur bus counter on Friday morning, Mayisha Mahzabin, a student of Dhaka University, learnt that her bus scheduled for 11.00 am has been delayed for 12 hours.

After 12 hours, she went to the counter again and found that the bus has not reached the counter yet. She cancelled the bus ticket and hired a microbus, along with 10 other people.

When contacted over the phone at 8.20am on Saturday morning, Mayisha said, from 3.30am to 8.15am in the morning their microbus stood still at one spot in Tangail.

After moving forward for only five minutes from there, it came to standstill again. At 4.15 in the afternoon, the microbus carrying Mayisha and others was on top of the Bangabandhu Bridge.

Mayisha who is a student at the English department of Dhaka University, is from Rajshahi’s Godagari upazila. To catch the bus, she had left from university’s Kabi Sufiya Kamal Hall at around 7.30am on Friday.

Mayisha said, amidst uncertainty over the bus’s arrival, 11 of them hired a microbus. It cost them Tk 2,200 each. That microbus got stuck in traffic congestion upon arriving at Tangail’s Karatia area at about 3.30am.

Mayisha added, she had an exam at the department on Wednesday. She started looking for tickets to go home from that day. She failed to get a train ticket but managed to find a ticket on a bus scheduled for Friday 11.00am.

She left her hall with three and a half hours to spare. Upon arriving at Asad Gate area she found herself in a gridlock and walked till Kalyanpur bus counter from College Gate area. When she arrived at Kalyanpur, she found that passengers of the buses scheduled for 11.00pm on Thursday night were still waiting there.

Maliha Binte Ali, another Dhaka University student from the political science department, said her bus was supposed to leave at 10.00pm on Friday night. She is also from Rajshahi town and a resident of Kabi Sufiya Kamal Hall. When she arrived at the bus counter, she found out their bus was still in Natore.

That bus arrived in Dhaka on Saturday morning. Maliha boarded the bus towards 8.15am. She left for home amidst worries and uncertainties without knowing how long it will take her to reach the destination, because of the traffic.