Staff Reporter :Auto-rickshaw owners and drivers blocked the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway and several others on Saturday, protesting a ban on movement of vehicles thereon across the country.They demonstrated on Dhaka-Tangail, Dhaka-Mymensingh, Dhaka-Aricha, Dhaka-Sylhet and Dhaka-Khulna highways demanding withdrawal of the government decision on traffic movement. The protesters also vandalized some vehicles.The traffic movement on the highways was halted for more than one hour, which intensified massive public sufferings.In Munsiganj, traffic movement on the Dhaka-Mawa highway remained halted for more than an hour as the auto-rickshaw owners and workers put up barricade on the highway at Baushia in Gazaria upazila.Sergeant Saiful Islam, in-charge of Bhaberchar highway police camp, said a group of owners and workers of CNG-run auto-rickshaws took to the street around 11:15am in the area and blocked the road, halting vehicular movement on the highway that cut the link with the capital.On information, police rushed in and calmed down the demonstrators with an assurance that they along with local people would hold talks with the government in this regard. However, the traffic came to normalcy around 12:15 pm. A huge traffic jam continued from 11:15 am to 12:45 pm.In Chittagong, drivers of auto-rickshaws have enforced strike for an indefinite period in Mirsarai upazila of Chittagong, protesting the ban on auto-rickshaw movement on highways.The announcement came from a human chain staged on the Dhaka-Chittagong highway on Saturday afternoon.Baro Aaolia Highway police outpost OC Md Shahidullah confirmed the news.In Tangail, auto-rickshaw owners and drivers blocked Dhaka-Tangail highway in protesting the ban on plying of their vehicles on highways. In Gazipur, auto-rickshaw drivers blocked the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway at Tongi.In Savar, auto-rickshaw drivers blocked the Dhaka-Aricha highway at Savar.In Rupganj, auto-rickshaw drivers on Friday blocked the Dhaka-Sylhet highway.Amid sharp rise in road fatalities, the government clamped a ban on the movement of three-wheelers, auto-rickshaws and non-motorised vehicles on highways across the country with effect from August 1. More than 250 people died in a series of road accidents before and after the Eid-ul-Fitr across the country. But too many three-wheelers are plying on the highways till Saturday. Earlier, the High Court last year banned Bhotbhoti, Nosimon and Korimon one the highways after a number of crashes and deaths.Meanwhile, auto-rickshaw drivers have demonstrated at Dhaka’s Postogola on Saturday, disrupting traffic on the first Buriganga Bridge.There was no traffic in the morning as mark of protests against the imposition of higher tolls on the use of bridge. Road traffic resumed after the police intervened.Police said. they are diverting traffic through the second bridge over the river at Babubazar.”Autorickshaw drivers are demonstrating on the bridge demanding scrapping of tolls. We are trying to stop them. Traffic has resumed in a limited manner,” said Shyampur police OC Abdur Razzak. In May this year, Tk 25 as toll was imposed on those using the bridge, leading to protests by autorickshaw drivers last week.In Fenchuganj, a large number of transport workers demonstrated at Fenchuganj in Sylhet on Saturday to protest against the rising of tolls for using the vehicles on the Fenchuganj Bridge, Sherpur Bridge, Hazrat Shah Paran Bridge, MA Khatun Lama Kazi Bridge and Sherpur Row Row Ferry Doc. Traffic was stopped in the morning when the for the same version, said Bazlar Rahma, OC of Fensuganj thana.Mollik Fakhrul Islam,Deputy Inspector General of Police (Highway) said that police would take stern action against the auto-rickshaws across the country.He said that police filed many cases against the illegal vehicles on Sunday. The number of local human haulers like Nosimon and Korimon had fallen following the government’s initiatives, the police official claimed.
