With political tension causing both bus and launch services to stay out of order in the capital yesterday, people had to rely on trains – the only mode of public transport system that saw normal operations throughout the day.
Even though rail officials expected to see train compartments to be more packed because of suspensions of other communication modes, the number of train passengers was significantly low out of Dhaka, apparently because of fears that the existing political tension might take an ugly turn and become violent at any moment.
“The pressure of passengers was lower than other days. Even some of the passengers returned their tickets... Out of fear of the political situation, the number of passengers was low,” station master of Kamalapur Rail Station, Nripen Chandra Saha, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
Officials at the Kamalapur Rail Station said almost all the trains were on time at the station, while trains elsewhere also moved properly without any glitch.
“Only the ‘Egarosindur’ train was delayed an hour while all other trains maintained their schedules,” the station master said.
Railway officials said although the Kamalapur station sees 64 trains daily carry over 40,000 passengers out of Dhaka on an average, yesterday most trains had vacant seats.
The director general of Bangladesh Railway, Amzad Hossain, told the Dhaka tribune: “We have taken a policy to operate trains during any type of political programmes. Under the policy, train ran properly; if passengers did not ride in the trains, we have nothing to do.”
Although Dhaka saw fewer number of outgoing passengers, rail officials from other districts claimed that they experienced higher passenger numbers than other days.
Rajshahi Rail Station Superintendent Abdul Karim claimed that the number of passengers was higher than usual, adding that they had to sell additional standing tickets for trains on different routes.
Mizanur Rahman, deputy commercial officer at Bangladesh Railway’s Chittagong office, also claimed that the number of passenger was more than other times. All the trains from Chittagong were on time, he added.