Home goers have started leaving Dhaka as the three-day public holiday on the occasion of Eid-ul-Azha begins today.
People who left Dhaka on Monday to celebrate the Eid festival in the countryside suffered long delays on different routes due to tailbacks, witnesses said.
As thousands of home goers were stranded during Sunday’s hartal, there was rush of people towards bus and launch terminals and railway stations on Monday, the last working day before the Eid vacation.
They suffered on their way to the inter-district bus terminals at Gabtali, Saidabad and Mohakhali, the Kamalapur and Airport railway stations and Sadarghat launch terminal due to chaotic traffic.
The three-day Eid holidays will turn into a five-day vacation because it links to the two weekend days –Friday and Saturday.
The Eid-ul-Azha, the second biggest festival of the Muslims, will be celebrated on Wednesday.
Attendance in government and semi-government offices was thin on Monday – the last working day before the Eid vacation.
Most of the offices were deserted after lunch on the day. Officials and employees of most ministries at the secretariat also had almost no jobs at hand and many of them left office much earlier. The weekly meeting of the cabinet, however, was held at the secretariat with the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, in the chair.
‘Many officials and employees at the secretariat left office before noon,’ said a senior official.
A number of officials and employees said they were leaving office earlier or they might not get their homebound transports due to long tailbacks in the city as traffic situation almost collapsed Monday after Sunday’s day-long hartal enforced by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
Some of them said that they might not be able to leave Dhaka for their ancestral homes in remote districts on this ‘short’ vacation as it would require 15-16 hours to reach their destinations.
Lawmen have been asked to remain on alert during the vacation to ensure security.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police traffic control said that the people heading for Gabtali and Jatrabari bus terminals had to suffer due to traffic congestion till evening on Monday.
A section of transport managements made windfall profits charging more than the normal fares as home-bound passengers crowded the terminals.
The passengers who left from Gabtali were caught in tailbacks at Aminbazar and Savar.
At Jatrabati, the traffic was slow due to construction of a fly-over, causing immense suffering to commuters.
The makeshift cattle market at Tantibazar created problems for the Sadarghat-bound passengers.
Thousands of apparel workers, who were paid wages and festival bonus on the day, hired old and unroadworthy buses and trucks to reach their destinations.
A number of such buses and truck became inoperative often on the road, creating traffic congestion on the highways, said Tangail police superintendent Mizanur Rahman.
The passengers heading for northern districts suffered due to traffic congestion at the eastern end of Bangabandhu Bridge as the authorities collected toll from the vehicles for long hours, New Age Tangail correspondent reported.
Transport operators blamed traffic mismanagement for the congestions on all the routes.
Transport operators expect about 75 per cent of the capital’s population to leave for village homes by road, railway and river transports to celebrate Eid.
Shohagh Paribahan managing director Faruk Talukder Sohel told New Age that a section of transport owners engaged unskilled drivers to increase the number of trips during the two Eids for making extra profit.
He said this multiplies the sufferings of the home-bound people at festival time.
The bus-truck owners’ association treasurer, Kamal Hossain, said that they had failed to ply their vehicles on schedule due to traffic congestion.
The highway police superintendent (East Zone), Anwar Kamal, told New Age that thousands of garment workers had headed for their village homes on Monday afternoon, creating extra pressure of traffic on the highways.
At Kamalapur, passengers waited for hours to catch a train for home. Twenty-one 21 trains, including 12 the inter-city, four mail and five special trains left Dhaka for different directions on Monday.
Station manager of Kamalapur station, Mujibur Rahman, admitted to the delayed operations and hoped the problem would be over on Tuesday.
Bangladesh Inland Water (passenger carriers) Association’s senior vice-chairman, Badiuzzaman Badal, said gridlock caused sufferings to passengers on their way to Sadarghat terminal.
