Bus, train and launch terminals in Dhaka witnessed a mad rush on Friday as holidaymakers continued frenetic departure from the city defying all the hassles of journey involved to celebrate Eid with families in their country homes.
Passengers, mostly garment workers from Savar, Ashulia and Gazipur, headed home in overcrowded buses, many of them riding on the roofs.
Eid-ul-Fitr will be celebrated either on August 19 or on August 20 depending on sighting of the moon.
Three inter-district bus
terminals in the city – Gabtali, Mahakhali and Sayedabad – and the Sadarghat launch terminal remained crowded with passengers leaving the city.
The passengers alleged that the bus operators were still charging extra fare while missing their schedules causing further sufferings to the home-bound people.
Passengers were seen riding on the roofs of the overcrowded trains that left Kamalapur station on Friday, at every other station they stopped.
Many of the 42 trains, especially those bound for the northern districts, were late by two to seven hours, officials said.
Traffic remained halted for about two hours from 6:30am on Dhaka-Tangail highway after a bus went out of order at Mirzapur in Tangail. Passengers remained trapped in a 30-km tailback stretching from Raipur to Eliotganj in Daudkandi on the Dhaka Chittagong highway for about six hours.
Overnight rain slowed the movement of traffic on the stretch of highway from Gazipur to Tangail, reports New Age correspondent in Gazipur.
Tofazzel Hossain Liton, a dyeing factory employee, told New Age that he had travelled to Sirajganj from Gazipur on the rooftop of a bus as there was no room inside. ‘It took him over six hours to reach Sirajganj, almost double of the normal time, as there was traffic congestion on the road,’ he said over telephone.
‘I bought a bus ticket from Soukhin Paribahan for Tk 450, Tk 150 more than the normal fare. The bus was scheduled to leave Gabtali at 3:00pm,but it was delayed by two hours, leaving the terminal at around 5:00pm,’ said Khulna-bound passenger Md Riazul Islam.
Many passengers said that transport operators were using rundown buses on different routes.
Most of the launches that left Sadarghat terminal were overcrowded, carrying passengers even on the top-most deck. But most of them left the terminal ahead of schedule, said officials of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority.
Nearly 100 launches left the terminal for 39 destinations in the southern region till 8:00pm, they said.
-With New Age input
