The government has given reassurance that the Eid journey will be safe this year. However according to Road Safety Foundation records, total 367 people have been killed and 1,500 have been injured in 358 accidents in just 15 days before and after the Eid.
Factors such as faulty vehicles, speeding, unskilled drivers and their physical as well as mental ailments have been pointed out as the reasons behind the accidents.
Last Monday, two students, who were riding a motorcycle, died when a bus hit their bike on Chattogram-Kaptai road in Zianagar area near Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET). They victims were Shanto Saha, a third-year student at the civil engineering department of CUET and Towfiq Hossain, a second-year student of the same department.
Following the incident, students of the university started a movement with a 10-point demand. Their demands included expanding the Chattogram-Kaptai road to four lanes, giving Tk 20 million (Tk 2 crore) compensation to each of the victim’s family, arresting the driver and the owner of the bus and arranging necessary busses and ambulances for the students of the university. While the driver of the bus has already been arrested, the owner is still beyond the reach.
The bus that rammed the motorcycle had no fitness. In the face of students’ protest, CUET authorities on Thursday closed the university off for an unspecified period. Enraged at the decision, students torched a bus of the Shah Amanat Paribahan transport company, parked on campus.
According to Road Safety Foundation data, as much as 13 per cent of all the people that have been killed in road accidents during the last three months are students. The figure stands at 225 persons. In other words, an average of two students died on the road every day.
Former director of the Accident Research Institute of Bangladesh University of Science and Technology (BUET), Professor Hadiuzzaman told Prothom Alo that working-age people and students have higher movement on roads and therefore they are falling victims of mismanagement on road more.
Notably, in the face of students’ protest demanding road safety back in 2018 that shook the whole country, the government passed the Road Transport Act that was appreciated by all. However the act couldn’t be implemented due to objection from the transport owners and workers. As a result, the disorder and the number of deaths from accidents on the road have increased even more.
The Road Safety Foundation has stated that the monetary value of the human resources lost in accidents this Eid stands at Tk 13.3 billion (Tk 1,330 crores). We do know that the loss of human life cannot be compensated with money.
Yet, we strongly support CUET students’ demand of paying Tk 20 million (Tk 2 crore) compensation to the families of the two deceased students. The court and the concerning authorities have ordered transport owners to pay compensation even before. But that has been neglected in a lot of cases.
The statistics of road accidents during the Eid holidays provided by the Road Safety Foundation and the Jatri Kalyan Samity are not comprehensive. They usually provide these statistics based on media information. They are many deaths that are not reported on media or recorded by the police station.
Keeping the transport owners and the drivers aside, not even the monitoring agency can deny responsibility of these three fifty plus people losing their lives during the Eid holidays. Why didn’t BRTA or the highway police take any action when vehicles without fitness were moving on the road?
Students and youths had taken to the street after the death of two students of the Ramiz Uddin School and College in Dhaka back in 2018. After five and a half years, students are yet again protesting following the deaths of two students of CUET. Where does this end? How many more deaths on the road will it take for the transport owners, workers and BRTA to wake up from their sleep?