Twelve students of different schools and colleges staged a sit-in at Chuadanga railway station on Wednesday protesting black marketing of train tickets, irregularities in ticket sales and passenger harassment.
The students staged the protest program for an hour from 11:45am to press home their six-point demand.
The students demanded an end to passengers’ suffering while purchasing tickets and sought action against brokers by investigating the complaints.
They also demanded equal opportunity for everyone in purchasing tickets online or offline.
They sought a long-term plan for the development of railway infrastructures along with an increase in the number of trains.
Earlier Dhaka University student Mohiuddin Rony staged a one-man protest against corruption in the country's rail administration for 13 days till Tuesday.
He was forced to come off his daily program at Kamalapur Station on Tuesday. Instead, he submitted a memorandum containing his demands and grievances to the director general of Bangladesh Railway.
He started protesting alleged mismanagement and corruption at Bangladesh Railway before Eid ul Azha, after falling victim to the dodgy e-ticketing system.
"Kamalapur Station authority stopped me from entering the station territory on Tuesday and Wednesday when I went to submit my memorandum to the director general of Bangladesh Railway (at Rail Bhaban), Ansar-police tried to block me from entering the building," Rony said.
He had been showing up at the station since July 8, with a six-point charter of demands to reform the railway system.
His demands are to stop passenger harassment by e-ticketing platform Sohoz.com, to prevent the black market chain of ticket selling, to stop the online booking system altogether and facilitate an easier, more transparent way to buy any type of ticket for the masses, to increase the number of trains to meet demand, and finally to form strong monitoring cell that truly ensures quality service on behalf of BR, right down to the price of goods like water, food and so on in the train.
