Staff Reporter :
Students demonstrating for road safety and demanding half fare in buses issued a nine-point demand on Sunday to press home their demands.
They emphasized on their demands including ensuring justice and compensation for victims of road accidents, issuing a gazette notification to provide half-passes for students on public transports, and ensuring safety for women on public transports.
The agitating students also announced to block the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) office if the government failed to issue the gazette on these regards within November 30.
The agitator students demonstrated on the streets on Sunday and vowed to continue their movement until the demands are not met.
Hundreds of students from different educational institutions started demonstrations in Dhanmondi 27 intersection around 12:00 am.
The vehicular movements become suspended after their taking street.
Meanwhile, they paved ways for ambulances, medicine carrying and other emergency vehicles during their movement.
The agitator students demanded harsh punishment of drivers for road accidents and effective steps to prevent more deaths on the roads.
They were seen checking driving licenses of different vehicles, including a few police vans.
Their other demand is to ensure half-passes for the students on buses.
Among the agitators, there were students of Birshreshtha Nur Mohammad Public College, Tejgaon Government College, Lalmatia Women’s College, Munshi Abdur Rauf College, Mohammadpur Government College, Tejgaon Government Science College, Holy Cross College, Dhanmondi Government Boys High School, Dhanmondi Laboratory High School, Willes Little Flower School and College and other educational institutions of the capital including Mohammadpur, Dhanmondi, Farmgate and Tejgaon.
The protesting students were chanting slogans after taking the street demanding half fare for them in buses and ending anarchies in the road.
They chanting slogans saying without ensuring half pass the bus movement would not be allowed.
The students said to journalists that they would not left the street until their demands are met.
“The bus workers used to do not let us ride on the transports. Even they used to misbehave with us after riding the buses,” said a student of Lalmatia Women’s College.
She and her fellow students demanded to end of such crimes.
The agitators left the street around 2:30pm.
The students movement began on Wednesday after the death of Notre Dame College student Nayeem Hasan by a Dhaka South City Corporation dustcart.
Another person on a bike was killed by a dustcart of Dhaka North City Corporation of following day.
In both the incidents, cleaners and sweepers were found driving the garbage trucks.
Meanwhile, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Sunday extended the party’s support to the agitator students.
“We extend our full support and express soliderity to the demand of the students. We demand that steps should be taken to provide them with half passes. In the case of necessity, the government can provide subsidy in this regard,” he said at a program in the capital on Sunday.
