Bus services halted on Natore-Rajshahi route

Bus services on the Natore-Rajshahi route remained suspended since Sunday morning, causing immense suffering to thousands of commuters, reports news agency UNB.

Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s Rajshahi city unit president Mosaddek Hossain Bulbul claimed that transport workers were enforcing a strike ahead of the party’s rally in the afternoon demanding release of Khaleda Zia.

But transport workers rejected the allegation, saying bus services were halted due to rain. No leader of Rajshahi’s transport workers’ union agreed to speak on record.

Kamal Hossain Robi, a former president of the union, insisted that the services were halted as the number of passengers was low because of rain.

He said buses were running on the Rajshahi-Dhaka route.

However, several leaders of the workers’ union, speaking on condition of anonymity, said bus services had never been suspended due to rain in the past.

Bulbul said they had been given permission for the rally, where the BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir is expected to attend.

“Buses have been suspended to prevent our supporters from joining the rally,” claimed Bulbul.

Earlier on Saturday, the BNP leaders in a press briefing alleged that the administration stopped buses of various routes to foil their rally to be organised in Rajshahi between 3:00pm and 6:00pm.

BNP chairperson’s adviser Mizanur Rahman and Habibur Rahman, executive committee’s organising secretary and former state minister Ruhul Kuddus Talukder, Rajshahi metropolitan unit BNP president and former city mayor Mohammad Mosaddek Hossain and several other leaders of the party and its associate bodies were present at the press briefing, organised at its Malopara office in Rajshahi around 11:00am on Saturday.