Police said they arrested private university student Shaon Bepari, 25, from the car. The driver and the owner, who was also in the car at that time, fled the scene. The deceased are Shahera Begum, 45, and Hasina, 35, police said. The injured, Tahera Begum, 50, was undergoing treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH).
The incident happened at a time when there is a growing concern over rash driving by some people, who are either high on drugs, or drunk, or in an illegal street race. For example, a recent car crash near the city’s Banani Flyover left a man seriously injured. The vehicle, which had flipped over, was racing another car.
A day after this year’s Eid-ul-Azha, a rashly driven car crushed an elderly couple dead in the capital’s Shewrapara. Several bottles of liquor were found inside the car. In another incident last year, a teenage driver badly injured four pedestrians in Gulshan when he was racing another car. He was reportedly drunk.
Inspector (investigation) Jafar Ali Biswas of Shahbagh Police Station said police were investigating whether the driver was at the wheel when the incident happened and whether anyone of them was drunk. He said the car was heading towards Matsya Bhaban. Police went to the spot and sent the injured to the DMCH. Doctors declared Hasina dead on arrival while Shahera died there later, said Shahbagh police.
Our roads and highways are already unsafe enough without this new phenomenon of adding reckless drivers to the list. Not only reckless but non compos mentis, of unsound mind, due to their habit of taking intoxicating drugs while driving. While the traffic administration has tried to minimize the scale of accidents by installing road dividers and speed bumps in major highway roads, the smaller roads also have had their share of accidents.
