Staff Reporter :
Country’s major highways witnessed serious tailback on Thursday, causing immense sufferings to the home-bound passengers ahead of Eid-ul-Azha.
A 20-kilometre-long tailback was created on Dhaka-Tangail highway around 4:00am yesterday from Chandra point in Gazipur to Mirzapur upazila in Tangail due to heavy pressure of vehicles, including the flow of the cattle-laden trucks, leaving several thousand vehicles stranded.
Commuters, especially the home-goers, faced severe hardship as they traveled through the highway where gridlocks brought the vehicular traffic to a standstill.
Tangail Police Superintendent Mahbubul Alam told local correspondents yesterday that around 700 policemen were deployed on the highway to ensure smooth passage of public.
The homebound people were also stuck on Dhaka-Chittagong and Dhaka-Aricha highways as vehicular movement came to a halt on the highways since Thursday afternoon at different spots, causing them immense sufferings.
Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) has opened a control room at its headquarters to oversee the vehicles’ movement across the country. The control room will start working from today (Friday) and will continue till September 15.
Thousands of city dwellers left the capital from dawn to midnight yesterday, while a large number of people are expected to leave for home today (Friday).
Besides, collapse of ferry service schedule on the River Padma rubbed salt into wounds of the passengers travelling through Dhaka-Arich highway yesterday.
The gateway of 26 districts, including northern districts, faced the situation mainly because of numerous cattle-laden trucks moving towards the capital and returning after unloading the sacrificial animals.
Highway police said the pressure began to mount since Wednesday midnight and finally resulted in gridlocks within early Thursday.
Like the previous years, traffic movement at the major exit points in the capital came almost to a standstill round the day as the rush of home-going people got momentum.
According to police, when a lorry broke down at Korotia of Tangail district intensified traffic congestion on Dhaka-Tangail highway, the main road network that connected northern part of the country with the capital Dhaka.
Vehicles were seen moving slowly on the highway.
Passengers have to remain stranded for hours to cross the exit points-Jatrabari, Uttara and Sadarghat. However, another exit point Gabtoli was comparatively less jam-packed.
