The gruesome accident in which five brothers, returning from Chakariya in Cox's Bazar after their father's funeral rites, were killed by a recklessly speeding pickup, once again showed the extreme chaos, disorder and anarchy in our transport sector.
Suresh Chandra Sushil of Chakariya in Cox's Bazar died on 30 January. Suresh Chandra's five sons were killed in a road accident on Tuesday while returning home from a local temple after a religious ceremony. The accident took place in Malumghat area of Chakaria upazila of Cox's Bazar-Chattogram highway. A day later, two schoolgirls were killed by another vehicle.
Saiful Islam, the driver of the pickup, was arrested in Dhaka three days after five brothers were killed in Chakaria. The information obtained from him is terrible. The vehicle did not have a licence, the driver was driving without a licence too. There is no way we can continue to term these as accidents. This is ‘systematic murder’. The driver, owner and regulator of the vehicle cannot avoid liability.
According to the RAB's Law and Media Wing, the owner of the pickup, Mahmudul of Chakariya, supplied vegetables to various places.
He did not renew the documents of this vehicle since 2018. According to the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), there are 3.8 million vehicles registered in the country. According to BRTA sources, there are about 2.8 million driver's licences for different types of vehicles. An individual drives a motorcycle and other vehicles with the same licence. Apart from that, the number of drivers stands at 2 million. In other words, 1.8 million vehicles are running with drivers without licence or ‘fake’ licences.
The question is how the car got on the road with fake license? How can a driver without license run a vehicle? BRTA is responsible for issuing licenses to vehicles and drivers. How lives need to be lost to bring sense to the BRTA officials? Drivers and owners of vehicles have to go through months of harassment to get a license. The minister of roads and bridges occasionally scolds them. The situation did not change much. On the contrary, the deaths due to road crashes continue.
In August 2018, students were protesting for safe roads. None of the promises made by various quarters of the government in the face of that movement have been fulfilled. Even the road transport law has been kept dormant due to opposition from employers and workers of transports.
The children who were returning home after their father's funeral rites ended up in coffins. The two students who were returning home after school were also crushed by the 'chander gari' (locally modified vehicle). We do not want to see another accident or death on the road.
Punish those responsible for the deaths of five brothers and two schoolgirls. We want assurance from the government that no one else will take to the the road without updated legal documents and no driver will be able to drive without a driving licence.