Tens of thousands of people continued streaming out of the capital by buses, trains and launches to celebrate Eid with families in their country homes.
Ticket counters at bus and launch terminals and railway stations are teeming with passengers round the clock desperately trying to buy tickets for high prices as Eid is only a couple of days away.
Passengers, who failed to get seats in trains or buses, were seen scrambling for a space on the rooftops ignoring the ban on travelling on their rooftops.
With people in their thousands heading home, the usually heavy traffic in the Dhaka city has started easing.
Eid-ul-Fitr will be celebrated either on August 19 or on August 20 depending on sighting of the moon.
Passengers, who were being forced to pay extra for tickets, also alleged that men at ticket counters were manhandling them at different inter-district bus terminals, including Gabtali, Sayedabad and Mahakhali.
Reports received from Manikganj, Rajbari, Sirajganj, Tangail and Narsingdi said inter-district buses were carrying extra passengers on rooftops and arranging extra seats. Many small buses were also seen overloaded with passengers.
Several thousand passengers suffered for more than eight hours from early morning because of a 60-kilometre tailback stretching from Gauripur to Comilla Cantonment on the Dhaka-Chittagong highway as a Dhaka-bound lorry collided head-on with a Chittagong-bound covered van at Ditpur in Daudkandi at around 5:00am on Thursday.
Travellers who crossed the River Padma on Mawa ferry route by speedboats alleged that they had to pay Tk 200 each, almost double the normal fare, on Thursday.
Bus counters of reputed transport operators, including Eagle Paribahan, Green Line, Hanif Paribahan, AK Travels, Shyamoli and A Alam Paribahan in the city said they were unable to provide any more tickets of chair and air conditioned coaches.
But, a number of passengers at Gabtali alleged that they had managed to get chair coach tickets from black market by paying extra.
‘As I did not get chair coach tickets anywhere, I bought two Eagle Paribahan tickets for Tk 750 each though the normal fare is Tk 480,’ said Jhenaidah-bound passanger Md Hafiz Uddin at Gabtali.
Denying the allegation of selling tickets on the black market, a counter man said tickets of passengers who had bought advance tickets but cancelled their trip, could be sold to others at fixed rate.
As the buses of Seba Chair Coach was late in schedule, the counter men were selling tickets by charging extra and without mentioning the travel time.
‘I bought two tickets from the Seba Chair Coach counter at Sayedabad for Tk 300 each, almost double the normal fare, to go to Noakhali, but the ticket mentioned no time for the start of the trip,’ said Md Mamun, a passenger.
Launch owners and officials of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority said they were expecting heavy rush on Friday and Saturday as Eid vacation at garment factories would start on Friday.
The road stretch from Gulishtan to Sadarghat remained wedged solid with near- constant traffic gridlock from dawn through to midnight.
The launch terminal at Sadarghat witnessed great crowds all day Thursday and most of the launches left the terminal overloaded with passengers.
-With New Age input
