Kamalapur Road Accident
Killer driver yet to be arrested
Family members of Roksana Begum Laila, 37, killed in a road accident in front of her six-year-old daughter, demanded capital punishment of the driver who ran the bus over her.
The body was kept in a fridge of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital for two days and later carried to their house at North Rayerbagh on Thursday afternoon.
However, police could not arrest the driver of the bus although two days have elapsed since the accident took place.
Roksana’s husband Saifullah Khan said, ‘We do not know how many lives we have to sacrifice to stop the reckless driving.’
Roksana Begum Laila was killed at 11:30am Tuesday when a bus of Ananda Paribahan rammed the rickshaw she in with her daughter near Sardar Hotel at Kamalapur while they were returning home from Shantinagar.
The victim’s brother-in-law, Anisur Rahman, told New Age that the six-year-old Nusrat Samiya was yet to realise the fatal incident of her mother.
All she knows is that her mother is ill and tacking treatment in a hospital.
Manju Molla, elder brother of Laila, alleged that due to the negligence of the government and some of the provocative remarks of different ministers, road accidents go unabated and her sister became a victim of that.
He demanded capital punishment of the driver, saying, ‘We do not understand any legal complexity. All we want is the death sentence of the drive.’
Narrating the mishap, Molla said the bus of Ananda Paribahan that plies between Gulistan and Narayanganj knocked the rickshaw from back. Being hit, Laila threw her daughter to the left side of the road while she remained on the right side and the bus ran over her abdomen.
Syed Ziauzzaman, officer-in-charge of Shahjahanpur police station, said the bus was seized after the incident. But both the driver and the helper managed to escape.
The body was buried at Matuail graveyard after namaz-e-janaza Thursday evening.
Earlier on September 18, home minister in a meeting with the Bangladesh Road Transport Workers Federation said, ‘A driver does not intentionally kill anybody. Accidental deaths cannot be termed intentional. So the drivers should not be sued directly under Section 302.’
Criticising the remark, road safety campaign group Nirapad Sarak Chai chairman Elias Kanchan said section 304B was not enough to stop recklessness on the roads and highways.
The section 304B carries a maximum penalty of three-year imprisonment with or without fine.
Tanweer Hasan, director of Accident Research Institute, told New Age that reckless driving and untrained drivers are one of the main causes behind unabated traffic accident in Bangladesh. In fact it is the sole human-caused reason.
Road accident takes a good number of lives each year. According to a study of BUET’s Accident Research Institute, on an average 12,000 people die in Bangladesh in road accidents every year and about 35,000 others are injured.
But according to the government estimates 3,500 to 4,000 people die in road accidents each year.
-With New Age input
