Thousands of people who left the capital city on Friday to celebrate Eid-ul-Azha in the countryside suffered long delays on the way due to traffic congestions, witnesses said.
There was an unusual rush of home-bound people keen to celebrate the festival with their near ones in the countryside on November 17, they said.
They reported that it took much longer than usual for people to reach their destinations with the traffic frequently coming to a standstill due to unusual congestions. Accidents caused by reckless driving often aggravated the problem.
People remained trapped in traffic jams for hours together as there was no way for them to make a detour.
Highway accidents were an extra cause of delay, they said.
Transport operators blamed traffic mismanagement for the congestions causing the delays on all the routes.
At least three highway accidents on the Dhaka-Tangail route created a serious congestion from Chandra to Elenga since early hours of Friday holding up the traffic for hours together, reported New Age correspondent at Tangail.
Witnesses said a truck, trying to overtake, hit another near the Kaliakair Bridge on Thursday morning and blocked the highway for hours until the vehicles were towed away.
A Dhaka-bound truck, carrying cattle, turned turtle hit by a covered-van from the rear on the same highway near Kumarjani in Mirzapur upazila Thursday morning about 90 minutes later.
A head on collision between two trucks near Pakullah in Mirzapur 45 minutes later led to yet another congestion on the same highway.
Witnesses said that it took quite some time for the joint efforts of local people and the police to remove the two vehicles from the highway.
Gorai highway patrol police officer-in-charge Sanwar Hossain said a Bogra-bound bus of Ovi Enterprise came to a halt due to mechanical fault creating a serious traffic jam on the highway for hours near Kaliakair.
‘With assistance from local people, we have been trying to make traffic movement smooth as far as possible,’ he said.
He said that it took several hours of efforts to restore the traffic movement from Chandra to Gazipur Friday evening.
Sanwar, however, said that the jam had terribly slowed traffic movement on the highway.
He said that vehicles were moving like turtles.
On way home in Magura, Rumana Rashid, a university student, said that the bus she took remained trapped in jams at least five times on the Dhaka-Paturia highway. She said it took her several hours more to reach her parents.
New Age Manikganj correspondent reports that the ferry movement remained normal at the Paturia terminal. He reports that the local administration ensured it after meeting it had with the terminal workers.
The acting deputy inspector general of police, Muhammad Amiruddin, said that the high way police had taken steps for hassle free movement of traffic on all the highways.
He said that the situation was under control.
According to transport operators approximately 75 per cent of the population in the capital city leave for the countryside by road, the railway and river transports to celebrate Eid.
Shohagh Paribahan managing director Faruk Talukder Sohel told New Age blamed a section of greedy transport owners for engaging unskilled drivers to increase the frequency of trips during the two Eids for making extra profit. He said this multiplies the problems for the home bound people at festival time.
