Ehsanul Haque Jasim :Within a span of several hours, two talented schoolgirls were killed in separate road accidents in two adjacent areas near the High Court in the city on Saturday due to the reckless driving.The deceased were identified as Sabiha Akhter, 14, daughter of Jakir Hossain, a resident of city’s Segunbagicha area and a class IX student of Begum Rahima Adarsha Girls’ High School of Segunbagicha, and Khadiza Sultana, 12, daughter of Bachchu Mia of Mandura village in Comilla and a class VI student of Lakshmanpur High School at Manoharganj in Comilla. Hailing from Nazirpur upazila of Pirojpur, Sabiha obtained GPA-5 in the Junior School Certificate (JSC) examination of 2015, while Khadiza secured GPA-5 in the Primary School Completion (PSC) examination. The reckless driving hit both the girls while they were crossing roads. Witnesses also held responsible negligence of on-duty traffic police for the accidents. They said, police were performing duty when the accidents took place but the drivers speeded away after the mishaps.Many other similar road accidents also took place in the city, particularly in the busy roads and its adjacent areas, in the recent times. A BIRDEM Hospital employee killed at Shahbagh after being hit by a bus last week, just a few days after a woman’s death in a similar road accident at Kakrail. Sabiha was killed as the rashly driven local bus No. 8, which runs from Jatrabari to Gabtoli via Farmgate, ran over her in front of Bangladesh Bar Council in the morning. The accident left her dead on the spot, as she was crushed under the wheels of the bus. Later the body was taken to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) for autopsy.Abu Bakar Siddique, Officer-in-Charge of Shahbagh Police Station, said that a speeding bus ran over Sabiha around 8:30am while she was crossing the road on her way to school. He also said that police seized the bus but its driver and helper managed to flee the scene.Witnesses said, they saw that traffic police were on duty at the spot when the accident took place. “The incident could be averted if the police could control the speed of reckless killer bus,” said an eyewitness. Immediately after the accident, Sabiha’s angry schoolmates and the pedestrians blocked the road to register their protest, halting traffic movement in the busy area for nearly an hour. Later, the vehicular movement came back to normal due to police intervention. The agitating students blamed the reckless driving for the schoolgirl’s death and said that the incident was proof of how unsafe the streets of Dhaka city. They demanded exemplary punishment of the driver for his reckless driving. A teacher of Begum Rahima Girls’ High School said that Sabiha obtained GPA-5 in the last JSC exam. She was a talented student of their school. Seven hours after the incident, another reckless local bus, which runs from Gulistan to Gabtoli via Science Laboratory intersection, rammed Khadija in front of the Shishu Park, near the High Court, in the afternoon. The OC of Shahbagh Police Station said that Khadija was crossing the road with her sister, brother-in-law and her nephew after visiting the Shishu Park. The critically injured schoolgirl was rushed to the DMCH where the on duty doctors declared her dead. On information, police rushed to the spot and seized the bus. Driver Shaheen Mollah was also detained in this connection, the OC said. Omar Faroque, victim’s brother-in-law, said that Khadija secured GPA-5 in the PSC exam and came to his Shyampur residence to see her sister and visit Dhaka. He said bus driver Shaheen was driving desperately and hit Khadija when they were crossing the road to go to a restaurant for having lunch.According to a statistics revealed by the ‘Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity’ last week, more than 8,500 people in the country died last year in road accidents. Another statistics by ‘Nirapad Sarak Chai’ said that most of the deaths in road accidents in 2015 were in Dhaka district. The number of accidents stands at 351, out of which, 227 were reported in the capital city.Leaders of the two organisations said that most deaths for the road accidents in Dhaka city occur due to reckless driving. Pedestrians are the highest fatalities of the road accident in the city. According to statistics, 91 per cent of the accidents take place due to reckless speeding. Secretary General of Jatri Kalyan Samity Mozammel Haque Chowdhury said that the government has provided police on the roads to control the speed limits in the crossings, but the police do not perform duty properly.He said there are some major reasons behind speedy and reckless driving. These are, lack of the driver’s training, paying the driver per trip rather than by a fixed salary, inadequate punishment and negligence of duty by the police. The Accident Research Institute (ARI) of BUET has identified the same reasons for the road accidents in the city.
