Home-bound people yesterday started leaving port city Chittagong to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr with their near and dear ones.
According to Arabic calendar, Eid is likely to be held on Friday or Saturday where only a single working day, Thursday, remained in the people’s hand and a huge number of holidaymakers left the city earlier to reach their home smoothly.
The home-bound people thronging on the rail station, bus terminals and other stoppages to catch their desired transport since the morning, as it was holiday due to Sab-e-Kadar.
The Dhaka Tribune correspondent found that huge crowd at Chittagong Railway Station, BRTC bus terminal at New Market, AK Khan Area and other exit points in the city and home goers were seen to wait with their family members with bag and baggage.
The home-bound people, however, expressed their concern to this correspondent that they might got stuck at traffic congestion on highways during their journey.
Shahriya Islam, a master’s student of Chittagong University’s Communication and Journalism, who board on a Dhaka-bound Provati Train, said he had managed the train ticket four days back.
Government Railway Police Chittagong Railway Station Outpost’s Officer-in-Charge Himansu Dash Rana said all the necessity measures had been taken to make the holidaymakers’ Eid journey safe and smooth..
Bangladesh Railway (BR) has completed the sale of advance train ticket from July 9 to July 12 while the public service provider has arranged two special trains for Chandpur which scheduled to ply from July 15 to July 19 to cover up the Eid rush, said BR sources.
Sub-Inspector Farid Uddin, in-charge of Jorarganj highway police outpost, told the Dhaka Tribune that there was a pressure of traffic on the both lanes of the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway while they were facing troublesome to control the traffic due to torrential rain.
“The traffic congestion is created at Comilla point of the highway while situation would be worst on Thursday and Friday if the rain continue further”, the police officer added.
Chittagong District Police’s Additional Superintendent of Police (Sadar) Md Sahidullah said police keeps eye on the Dhaka-Chittagong highway’s 16 points where internet protocol cameras had been set up to check the traffic jam and other criminal offence.
Apart from that, Chittagong Metropolitan Police beefed up the overall security in the city by deploying cops at exit points and key points ahead of eid journey, said police sources.