Staff Reporter :
The Dhaka Metropolitan Police [DMP] will operate mobile courts from Tuesday to prevent people from violating traffic rules and regulations.
The court will start working at Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue stretching from Farmgate police box to Ruposhi Bangla hotel.
The DMP is also going to apply tough action against the jaywalkers who would not use foot over bridges or underpasses during crossing the city streets. The mobile courts would impose six-month imprisonment or Tk 200 in fine on the jaywalkers for law breaking.
As a part of police action, the DMP has also started a three-day campaign yesterday under a pilot project in the city to bring the pedestrians under proper discipline.
“We have started a mass awareness campaign from Saturday before the mobile courts start functioning. The jaywalking not only puts the lives of pedestrians at risk but also creates obstacle to smooth traffic movement,” DMP Commissioner Benazir Ahmed said at a press conference yesterday.
Elaborating the campaign, the DMP boss said, “Traffic police will use holdings, banners and festoons to create awareness during the campaign. The penalty for crossing streets without using the foot over bridges or underpasses will be six-month imprisonment or Tk 200 in fine.”
He said, “A mobile court led by magistrate would start functioning on the street starting. Many pedestrians cross busy streets, merely signalling vehicles to slow down by raising their hands. It is risky and create hazard to traffic management.”
“I’m optimistic that the move will raise awareness among the city dwellers. I also hope that everyone will use foot over bridges and underpasses while crossing streets and reduce risks to their lives,” he added.
Recently, the reckless driving by the son of a high police official claimed life of a jaywalker in the city’s Banani area on October 30.
Jafar Sadik, 23, son of Mozammel Hossain, Additional Deputy Inspector General of Criminal Investigation Department [CID], hit and killed Mritunjoy Acharya, 50 on the spot when he was driving a white-colour Toyota Allion car [Dhaka Metro Ga 21-6767] tagged with ‘Police’ sticker on the windshield.
Meanwhile, the DMP again installed a spiky device to prevent vehicular movement on wrong direction, on a city road.
The device was set up on Friday night at Shaheed Mansur Ali Sarani in front of the DMP headquarter as a test case.
According to the press release issued by DMP yesterday, the traffic division of the DMP will install ‘protirodh’, a modern device, to prevent plying of vehicles from wrong directions.
“This will make safer the movement of commuters and pedestrians apart from applying the traffic laws effectively. The spikes will puncture the tyres of a vehicle coming from the wrong directions and thus help the police nabbing the law violating drivers,” added the release.
The device was first set up on Hare Road in front of the state guest house Jamuna on May 22 which had been removed on June 4 for technical difficulties.
DMP officials said when a vehicle going on direction would press on the device, the pins would sink but in case a vehicle goes on wrong direction and presses on the device, the pins would puncture the tyres.
Police said the device is 30 feet in length and 13 inch in width which has a total of 179 spikes which cost more than Tk 5 lakh.
In May, just hours after it was installed on the road, the car of a lawmaker had its tyres punctured by the device while it was passing over the device from the wrong side.
