A HORRIFIC incident reported by local newspapers yesterday that a female government official lost her left leg after a recklessly-driven bus ran her over on a pavement in the city’s Banglamotor area on Tuesday afternoon. Doctors amputated Krishna Roy Chowdhury’s left leg from below the knee. The accident took place when Krishna, 55, Assistant Manager (Accounts) at Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation, was on her way to a private bank in Banglamotor from her nearby office.
According to the witnesses, the bus was racing with another one, with both vehicles heading towards Shahbagh. At one stage, the bus driver lost control of the vehicle and hit the woman standing on the footpath. The victim, also got injury in the head, was rushed to the Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College Hospital from where she was shifted to the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedic Rehabilitation (NITOR). Police seized the bus, but its driver and his helper managed to escape. We have no word to express our sympathy to Krishna Roy who might have been killed at that time. She, however, luckily escaped the death.
It’s the same old story of reckless and ruthless transport workers. Killing people on the footpaths losing control of vehicles is an old phenomenon of the untrained and unlicensed drivers. On July 30 last year, two students of Shaheed Ramij Uddin Cantonment College died on the spot when a speedy bus ploughed through a group of students waiting on footpath in front of their institution. College student Rajib had lost his right hand after it got stuck between two speeding buses competing to overtake each other near Banglamotor area on April 3 last year. After two weeks in coma with severe head injuries, he died at the DMCH. There are many other examples of killing on footpaths due to mad races between two vehicles.
What we see that, proper traffic management has appeared to be the most hard and critical task at this moment. Traffic Department of Police is apparently helpless to check and control the mafia-ruled transport sector where ruffians run the business. Like other sectors, government has failed to establish rule of law on the roads and highways.
