Heavy traffic congestion hits Dhaka as curfew relaxes, commuters suffer

The office-court opened from Wednesday after being closed for a week. This situation arised in due to the movement of ordinary students for demanding reform of quota in government jobs. Like the previous day, all the official activities are going on in a 4-hour schedule today. For this, the nationwide curfew has been relaxed for 7 hours from 11 am to 5 pm. City life started to become normal. However, the major cause of suffering has been the overcrowding of vehicles on the roads during the restricted hours.

Since the public and private offices have been opened in a schedule of only four hours, the busyness of office-goers has been seen on the roads of the capital since morning. Besides, other professionals are also on the way to complete the essential work. Although the curfew is relaxed at 10 am, the traffic starts much earlier. After that, the pressure of vehicles and passengers increased as the day progressed. But due to the curfew, the passengers have to suffer as the public transport is less than normal days. And for the security of the citizens, the checkpoints of the law and order forces at various spots have added an additional dimension to this suffering. Many people unable to reach the workplace on time due to traffic jams.

Incidentally, the agitators announced a 'complete shutdown' program from last Thursday to demand quota reforms. They had the same program on Friday. Based on this program, miscreants carried out acts of violence and vandalism across the country, including arson, blocking roads and highways, setting fire to government buildings.

To control this vandalism and violence, the government issued a curfew across the country from last Friday at 12 midnight and deployed the army. After that, all types of public transport including buses, trains and launches were stopped across the country. After that three days general holiday was declared. But to return normal life, the government decided to relax the curfew for 7 hours by setting 4 hours office time from Wednesday.

However, people have to go out to attend the workplace during the relaxed curfew. Such images were seen in almost all areas of the capital, including Karwanbazar, Badda, Sayedabad, Rampura, Narda, Mirpur, Paltan. Due to traffic congestion, the roads in these areas have slowed down.

When asked about this, Tejgaon Zone Assistant Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Snehashish Kumar Das said that there is a lot of traffic on the road since morning due to the opening of offices and courts. Apart from this, the slowness of the vehicles was also seen due to the army personnel checking the vehicles from place to place.