Bus service halted in Mymensingh ahead of BNP rally
Ahead of Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP) divisional rally in Mymensingh on Saturday noon, all bus service inside the district and on inter-district routes have been halted without any prior notice.
From 7:30am to 9:30am, local bus service inside Mymensingh was completely halted. Kishoreganj, Sherpur and Netrokona bound buses were not leaving from the city’s Patgudam Inter-district Bus Terminal.
Dhaka bound buses from these three districts that travel via Mymensingh also were not operating. But some buses going to northern districts using the Mymensingh route were operational.
However, Dhaka-Mymensingh bus route has remained unaffected by this virtual transport strike.
BNP is set to hold a divisional rally at 2:00pm at Mymensingh’s Polytechnic Institute ground. In this rally, a huge number of BNP leaders and activists from four districts under the Mymensingh division are expected to attend.
The BNP activists are alleging that the transport owners have shut down the bus service as per the ruling party’s instruction to stop people from attending the rally.
On the other hand, the halt in bus service is causing problems for the general passengers. At Mymensingh’s Ishwarganj bus stand in the morning, many travelers were seen waiting for buses.
Al-Amin, one of the passengers, said that he had not heard anything about the virtual bus strike beforehand. He has been waiting for the bus for a long time, but there are no buses.
As there are no buses, passengers from Kishoreganj, Netrokona and Sherpur are traveling to Mymensingh on easy bikes, paying double fare.
Easy bikes from other districts aren’t allowed to enter the Mymensingh city. Passengers are getting off at Shambhuganj and then getting on another easy bike to enter the city.
To know why the bus service is halted, Mymensingh District Motor Owners Association’s coach department’s secretary Somnath Saha was phoned multiple times but he didn’t respond.
Mymensingh police super Masum Ahmmad Bhuiyan said, the police department has taken adequate security measures ahead of BNP’s rally. But he doesn’t know anything about the bus service being halted.