Staff Reporter :
In a tragic accident, two students of city’s Shaheed Ramiz Uddin Cantonment College were killed on the spot and at least 12 others received severe injuries when a passenger bus losing its control struck them in full speed on Airport Road at about 12:30 pm on Sunday.
The dead were identified as Dia Khatun Mim, 17, a XI grader of Shaheed Ramiz Uddin Cantonment School and College, Abdul Karim alias Rajib Uddin, 19, a XII grader of the same institution, police said quoting the witnesses and victims’ family members.
According to witnesses, a Uttara-bound bus of ‘Jabal-e-Noor Paribahan’ ran over the college students leaving the duo dead while they were chatting after completing their classes standing on the footpath. Most of them were waiting for transport to go home in front of Kurmitola General Hospital near Radisson Hotel, a slope of the Mirpur Zillaur Rahman flyover linking to the Airport Road.
Following the crash, the agitated students of the college took to the streets and vandalised about 50 vehicles and set fire to some buses. Traffic on the Airport -Uttara-Mohakhali and its adjacent roads was halted for two hours due to the protests, said Abdul Ahad, additional deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Gulshan Circle.
At first, the injured students were rushed to Kurmitola General Hospital. “Fourteen victims were brought to Kurmitola General Hospital, two of them were declared dead. The remaining 12 were admitted to the hospital for treatment,” said Dr Monjur Al Morshed of the emergency department, said.
Later, six of them were shifted to nearby Combined Military Hospital (CMH) when their condition deteriorated.
Witnesses said some students were trying to cross the road through a gap near the Radisson Hotel. Many were waiting for the buses on the footpath. A group of students had been waiting for their transport at the foot of the flyover when the bus from Mirpur hit them.
Students from the institution instantly blocked the road and began protests after the accident. Angered by the tragic accident, students and locals torched at least 50 buses, including the killer one, and vandalized dozen of vehicles on the road. Huge broken glasses were seen on the Airport Road’s Khilkhet to Banani, witnesses said.
Traffic on Airport Road was halted as they began to vandalise and set fire to vehicles. Later, high police officials came to the spot and convinced the students to vacate the road. The traffic on the busy road returned to normalcy after law enforcers intervened around 4:00pm.
Local people showed astonishment as the bus hit the standing students just after getting down despite several safety measures, like speed breakers, traffic signals, Police Check post, on the busy road from the flyover.
Soon after the accident, agitating locals caught the bus driver and handed him over to Cantonment Police Station.
Nina Ahmed, a passenger of the killer bus, told The New Nation, “Two buses of the same transport company plying on the route from Abdullapur to Mohammadpur were on a race were responsible for the tragic accident.”
Sabbir Hussain, a witness of the accident, who shared a video of the accident on his facebook page, said, “What happened in front of my eye!!!! Two male students and one female student of Ramiz Uddin College died on the spot.
“A Uttara-bound bus of ‘Jabal-e-Noor Paribahan’ caused the accident while competing with another bus just after getting down from the Mirpur flyover at 12.45 pm,” wrote Engineer Md Motiur Rahman, another witness, on his facebook post.
Recently, the private bus drivers have become careless due to getting impunity for the crimes and having political linkage of the bus owners. It is alleged that, several police personal are owners of a lot of private buses operating in the city routes enjoy privilege from traffic department and BRTA.
