Staff Reporter :
Transport workers have called an indefinite strike in 10 districts of Khulna division from today (Sunday) protesting the life term jail sentence of a bus driver in a case filed over a road accident that killed five people, including noted filmmaker Tareque Masud and cinematographer Mishuk Munier, in 2011.
Bangladesh Road Transport Workers Federation came up with the decision at an emergency meeting at its regional committee’s office in Jessore on Saturday.
“The strike will be enforced from 6:00am today (Sunday),” Abdur Rahim Baksh Dudu, General Secretary of Bangladesh Road Transport Workers Federation, Khulna Divisional Committee, told this to reporters while announcing the strike programme.
“No engine-run vehicle will be allowed to ply the roads during the strike,” he said.
The 10 districts are Bagerhat, Chuadanga, Jessore, Jhenaidah, Khulna, Kushtia, Magura, Meherpur, Narail and Satkhira.
Meanwhile, Chuadanga District Bus and Truck Workers Union already went on an indefinite transport strike on Wednesday protesting at the punishment of the bus driver.
A court in Manikganj on Wednesday, sentenced bus driver Jamir Hossain, 48, of Daulatdiar village of Chuadanga district, to life term imprisonment in a case filed over the deaths of Tareque and Munier.
He was also awarded two years more imprisonment for using his expired driving license during the incident.
Tareque Masud, Mishuk Munier and three others were killed as a microbus, carrying them, collided with a bus, driven by the convict Jamir, on Dhaka-Aricha Highway in Ghior upazila in Manikganj on August 13, 2011.
