Eid deaths in Bangladesh
At the end of Ramadan, Muslims across the world prepare for Eid. In Bangladesh, the occasion is marked by gloomy statistics every year.
It is about the number of holidaymakers being killed in road accidents. During Eid-ul-Fitr, people flock to their homes in the districts and villages to celebrate the happy occasion with families. Transport along the road, water and rail ways swarm with commuters.
But the journeys are like lotteries. For years, during Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha many cannot make it. Either they cannot ever reach their home and families or they lose the battle while returning.
In the first three months of this year, 1,212 people, including 157 women and 215 children, were killed and 2,429 others injured in road accidents, according to Dhaka Tribune.
The average number of such fatalities generally rises during the Eid rush. During the last Eid-ul-Fitr, accidents on the waterways, railways and roads killed 405 in a span of 13 days. Among them, 339 were killed on the roads alone, according to Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity. During the Eid-ul-Azha vacation, the number was 259.
The number in 2017 was 274 during Eid-ul-Fitr and 322 during Eid-ul-Azha, in 2016 the number was 186 during Eid-ul-Fitr, and 193 during Eid-ul-Azha and the number was around 200 during Eid-ul-Azha in 2015. These people died in a span of about two weeks.
These statistics were disclosed by a passenger welfare organisation, government and other sources to the media.
These are deaths caused on the roads, but there were more on the rivers and railways. And the number of injured was also way up.
In all the reports, experts more or less identified certain black spots across the country that were result of construction faults. Also, they blamed reckless driving, unfit vehicles as well as no monitoring. They also recognised the greed of the owners and workers as well as the negligence of the authorities concerned.
In one such report, during September 2016, the road transport and bridges minister, Obaidul Quader, opposed another member of the parliament who had said hundreds were killed on the roads. The minister said the number was 153 actually and told the parliament, “I am neither the driver nor the owner of the vehicles," adding, "Despite that, as a minister, I’ve moral liabilities,” and on behalf of the government admitted “the liabilities of the deaths on road during the Eid.”
In 2015, just the previous year of the debate, during the Eid rush, 46 people were killed in a single day, as Mozammel Haque Chowdhury, secretary general of Jatri Kalyan Samity, told Daily Star. He also, earlier said, 37 per cent of the dead were the sole earning members of their families.
The problems are persistent for years and are now even on the rise. This is not an issue to be discussed during Eid. There are many statistics, surveys along with guidelines of what to do. There are a few links below, if you want to have a look. But these only intensify our helplessness. This reminds us that how acutely we, the people, remain unheard.
This shows the lack of empathy, let alone initiatives, for saving lives on the roads. Perhaps, the people dying on the roads every day are really not much concern for this state.