NEWS reports said Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) is going to restrict plying of public transports in Gulshan, Baridhara diplomatic zones from next month to ensure safety of people, mainly the foreigners living in the area. The measure is coming into effect following the militant attacks on Holey Artisan Bakery in the diplomatic zone with heavy death casualties involving foreign nationals with another follow-up attack in few days at Sholakia Eidgah ground in Kishoregonj district. These attacks have terribly shaken the confidence of foreigners and we understand that there must be distinctive safety measures for diplomats, foreign aid workers and buying house operators living in those areas. It appears that the latest measure seems to be one more such steps to make the diplomatic zones foolproof. But questions have arisen whether such restriction would eventually isolate the areas and its businesses from the reach of the common people. We don’t want a prohibited city within the city. We believe much more need to be considered before such steps were put in place. A National daily on Friday made the disclosure saying that DMP would allow 30 air-conditioned buses and 500 CNG driven auto-rickshaws to ply in the Diplomatic Zones. As far as public safety, we have full support behind every police action but we also assert that such decisions must be easily implementable with less public harassment. Two questions immediately hit the public mind. The first one is whether the smaller number of transports would be enough in view of the huge number of people living around the area and daily visiting the down town to attend office and businesses. Such restriction is bound to create chaos in city streets for passengers bound for those areas. The fare of the air-conditioned buses may not be affordable to many. Auto-rickshaws may not be available instantly and may also exorbitantly charge to add to the people’s suffering visiting the area.Moreover, road check-posts and search of vehicles are time consuming and have already drastically reduced visitors to eateries and shopping malls in those areas. Business has already plunged to the brink. Further restriction of public transports may in a sense isolate those areas; which can’t be the objective of strengthening of security. Blocking militants does not mean to restricting access of common people to those areas and business. We would ask the DMP to recheck the whole idea. The new arrangement suggest that some buses would carry passengers on Natun Bazar-Kakoli route while some other would run from Niketan point to Gulshan-2. Auto-rickshaws would have distinctive colour and bus drivers have their new identity cards. Police are not for running the country, asking them to do so is to prove their own failure.
