LOCAL newspapers reported that a youth was killed on Friday as police opened fire during a clash with transport workers and locals protesting the toll hike at the First Bangladesh-China Friendship (Buriganga 1) Bridge at Hasnabad in the capital Dhaka. The two-and-a-half-hour clash also left about a hundred people injured, including 25 policemen and a number of workers and locals.
It is however not yet known who is actually responsible for the killing when one group is blaming the other group for the firing. A judicial inquiry can neutrally investigate out the real killers.
Like nonviolent citizens’ movements — quota reform and road safety — the Friday’s protests against the increased toll fees is also a kind of protest against administrative misrule and lack of good governance; particularly in the road transport sector. The way the police have handled the protest is repressive, and thus abhorrent. When the authorities concerned in the name of recapitalization of loan-scam-mired banks allocate millions of taka from the national exchequer, remain reluctant when billions of taka flies abroad; at that time the death of a transport worker only for protesting excessive toll fees is shameful.
Media outlets published that police opened fire during the clash. The critically injured transport worker Sohel Howlader succumbed to his injuries in a hospital as bullet pierced his back and came out through his chest. During the clash between two groups of transport workers, whose top two leaders are powerful ministers, and police, several vehicles, including a police car and roadside shops were vandalised. Television footages showed in retaliation of brick chips hurled by transporters police fired gunshots, sprayed rubber bullets, lobbed tear gas canisters and charged batons indiscriminately.
We think, the action of the state-machinery against its ordinary citizens is regrettable and this attitude gives undue facilities to a section of influential people. The bridge was open for traffic in 1989 and since then government-leased organisations have been collecting toll and the rate was increased each year. Transport workers have been demanding scrapping of its toll since 2016 as the toll mounted pressure on their livelihood. But nobody paid heed to their demand.
