To ease traffic congestion, a meeting was held a few days ago between the Jessore District Commissioner, local dignitaries, and transport officials.
The decision was made that buses departing from Benapole Checkpost and Benapole Bazar to Dhaka, Jessore, and other district towns would now depart from the municipal bus terminal, located about 4 kilometers away from Benapole Bazar.
Additionally, buses arriving at night from Dhaka would drop passengers at Benapole Checkpost early in the morning before returning to the terminal.
However, around 3am on Friday, passengers on buses coming from different parts of the country were forcibly dropped off at the terminal, causing significant inconvenience.
In response to this abrupt administrative decision, without prior notice, the bus owners’ association has suspended all bus operations since Saturday morning, continuing through Sunday.
Passport travelers have complained that while India’s Petrapole has a terminal near immigration for travelers’ convenience, passengers on the Bangladesh side are being sent to a distant terminal, leading to severe inconvenience and safety concerns.
Mehedi Rayhan Uddin, a passenger from Dhaka, said: “After arriving from Dhaka, we were dropped off at the municipal bus terminal, several kilometers from the border, at 3am. I had to sit at a tea stall for two hours before taking a battery-powered rickshaw to the border in the morning. We want buses to operate from the central terminal located at the checkpost.”
Regarding this, Bablu Rahman Babu, President of the Benapole Transport Association, said: “We followed the administration’s directives after the meeting. Buses arriving at night would drop off passport passengers at Benapole Checkpost, and the empty buses would then go to the municipal bus terminal. However, on Friday night at 3am, passengers from buses arriving from different parts of the country were forcibly dropped off at the terminal. They faced insecurity and harassment and were later sent to the checkpost in local vehicles by municipal staff at the terminal.”
Transport stakeholders questioned why local vehicles can go to the checkpost, but transport buses are not allowed to drop off passengers there.
They argued that their buses do not cause unnecessary congestion or park inappropriately. The perceived discriminatory behavior by the administration led the bus owners’ association to halt operations, suspending bus services from Benapole to Dhaka and beyond since Friday night.
Kazi Nazib Hasan, Benapole Municipal Administrator and Sharsha Upazila Executive Officer (UNO), said: “We have not closed the checkpost terminal. The port authority has locked the terminal gates following orders from their higher authorities. Due to the locked gates, passengers were dropped off at the municipal bus terminal on Friday night. Even on Saturday morning, buses carried passengers to the checkpost without obstruction. From midnight to 6am, there’s no restriction on passenger buses going to the checkpost.”
He added: “Every problem has a solution. The bus owners’ representatives could have discussed this with me. Instead, they created instability by suspending bus operations without consultation. This was not the right course of action.”
