Police monthly earn at least Tk 10 lakh allowing illegal three-wheelers to ply Barisal city roads, alleged vehicle owners’ association on Sunday.
At a press conference at the Barisal Reporters Unity, the district auto-rickshaw, auto-tempo, baby-taxi, taxi-cab owners’ association also demanded that the three-wheelers should be legalised.
Mobashwer Ali Khondokar, president of the association, read out a written statement at the press conference also attended by Molla Saidur Rahman, district secretary, Idris Ali, city president, SM Rafikul Islam, city secretary, of the association.
The association leaders said about 450 three-wheelers legally ply different roads and feeder routes of the city by taking permit and licences from the BRTA and other departments.
However, more than two thousand three-wheelers are operating without any legal documents, licences and fitness only by giving bribe to different departments.
Every month the drivers-cum-owners of the illegal vehicles pay Tk 1,000 per vehicle to collect tokens called ‘police-bit’ signed by leaders of the workers’ association to manage the traffic police and other authorities.
From the collected money at least fifty per cent goes to the police and the rest fifty per cent is distributed among the different officials of BRTA, district administration and leaders of the association and ruling parties, they alleged.
The leaders of the association said the illegal vehicles not only lack valid documents, but also do not have fitness, driving licence, which often lead to fatal accidents.
Many owners of illegal three-wheelers, locally making body of the brand vehicles such as Alpha-Mahindra, assemble two-stroke engines instead of four-stroke engines.
Some three-wheelers have number plates reading On-Test, Bhola, Jhalakathi, Pirojpur, Patuakhali and carried from other districts, the association leaders alleged.
They demanded imposition of immediate restrictions on illegal three-wheelers and threatened to start tough programmes if their demands would go ignored.
Mujahid Ul Islam, deputy commissioner (traffic), and Mahmud Hasan, assistant commissioner (traffic), of Barisal Metropolitan Police denied the allegation of collecting money from the workers’ union.
Regular drives for checking validity, fitness, licences of the three-wheelers are operated in the city, they claimed.
Barisal city has not sufficient regular services of mechanised big public transports for narrowness of the city roads and rickshaw fare is increasing every day without any control.
So, more three-wheelers should be allowed on roads to address the transportation crisis in the city, Sardar Kamal Hossain, president of the workers’ union, said.
He also denied bribing the police or other authorities for allowing the illegal vehicles on the city roads.
-With New Age input
