Killer Bus was unfit, without route permit

The bus that caused the accident in Savar’s Baliarpur on Sunday which took four lives, including scientists of Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, didn’t have a route permit, a valid fitness certificate and was operating without paying due taxes, said Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) on Monday.

The accident took place at the Dhaka-Aricha highway on Sunday morning. BAEC’s senior scientific officer Arifuzzaman, scientific officer Puja Sarkar, engineer Kausar Ahmmed and bus’s driver Rajib Hossain lost their lives in the accident while 15-20 people sustained injuries.

According to Savar BRTA officials, the Safe Line Paribahan bus that caused the accident didn’t have a permit to operate in that route. Furthermore, its fitness certificate expired on 16 July 2014 and it was running without paying taxes since 24 May 2015.

An inspector of Savar BRTA Md Sazzadur Rahman told Prothom Alo, the fitness and tax of the bus was out of date for a few years. It didn’t have a route permit. He said, after nabbing the bus driver, they can uncover the identity of the owner and find out other information.

Savar highway police station’s assistant sub inspector (ASI) Md Fazlul Haque filed a case against the bus driver under the road transport act on Sunday night.

Savar model police station’s officer in-charge (OC) Kazi Mainul Islam told Prothom Alo, after seeing the CCTV footage, they have primarily marked the bus responsible for the accident. "We are conducting an operation to capture the driver. Savar highway police station is conducting the investigation."

The additional police superintendent of Dhaka district traffic police Abdullahil Kafi told Prothom Alo, “To maintain discipline on the road, we are regularly conducting operations to catch drivers without license, vehicles without route permit and unfit vehicles. BRTA conducts these operations with its own manpower. It’s never desirable to see lives being lost in deadly road accidents. Very soon we will conduct strict operations.”

At 9:00am on Sunday at the Dhaka-Aricha highway, a Dhaka-bound bus of Safe Line Paribahan collided with a cattle-laden truck. The impact of the collision was such that the bus crashed into the road divider and hit the BAEC’s bus coming from the opposite direction.