Md Joynal Abedin Khan :
The organised gangs of criminals, robbers and muggers attack passengers and snatch their valuables in cash and kinds at gunpoint in the running trains at night as the security measures are scanty.
Sometimes they throw out them from the running trains and escape safely.
The miscreants commit crimes at Railway Stations and junctions as well. Yet the passengers take risk to travel to meet their necessities.
Sometimes they commit robberies in the guise of passengers in the trains across the country.
Gangsters killed a Malaysian expatriate named Shafiqul Islam by throwing him out from the running train at Haydrabad in Gazipur district on January 17 at night.
A student of Chittagong University (CU) became a victim in the Diesel Electric Multiple Unit (DEMU) train near the Cantonment Station on May 10 last year. Identified as Nusrat Jebin, he was a student of Islamic History and Culture department. These are- 1) Sudden increase of three-wheeler and locally made other vehicles on the roads and highways. 2) Not installing fog lights in the long-route vehicles. 3) Unskilled drivers with reckless driving. 4) Lack of awareness among the pedestrians and drivers of small vehicles.
Apart from it, the committee also marked some other faults as ‘general reasons’ for the rising accidents.
Of them, appointment of drivers without license, overloading and overtaking bypassing the law, long time driving without interval, bad shape of roads with risky turnings and lack of implementation of law to stop unfit vehicles are mentionable.
Earlier, the Jatri Kalyan Samity [Passenger Welfare Association], an organization which works on road accidents and protection of passenger rights, in another study said that about 8,642 people died in road accidents across the country last year [2016] while 1,305 persons became physically impaired losing their hands, legs or some other vital organs.
The organization also gave some recommendations to overcome the increasing accidents. These are: Carrying out publicity through educational institutions, places of worship and media to make citizens aware of traffic and motor vehicle laws; Removing markets from near national and regional highways and freeing footpaths from grabbers or unauthorised occupation; Installing road signs and marking zebra crossings; Imparting professional training to drivers and ensuring their leisure; Updating existing traffic laws and digitalising issuance and renewal of vehicle fitness certificates and Dividing highways for slow- and fast-moving vehicles.
But the Road Transport and Bridges Ministry and the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority [BRTA] did not pay any heed to it due to unknown reason.
