Hawkers and vendors have set up temporary shops occupying footpaths and large portions of roads in different parts of the city due to the upcoming Eid festival. Doing so endangers the lives of pedestrians, as they have to walk on the roads and not the footpaths.
A section of ruling party men and law enforcing agency personnel have allegedly been collecting tolls from the vendors in exchange for facilitating the illegal roadside businesses, which have also been hindering vehicular movement.
While visiting Bahaddarhat, GEC intersection, New Market, Station Road, Sholoshahar, Agrabad, Alkaron, Anderkillah, Chittagong Medical College Hospital and the Chittagong Export Processing Zone (CEPZ), most of the footpaths were occupied by hawkers.
The stretch of road from the CEPZ intersection to the Navy Hospital gate was awful, as hundreds of shops, including kitchen markets have been set up and are occupying almost half the road apart from the footpath.
Mohammed Aslam, a local resident and a RMG worker at CEPZ, told the Dhaka Tribune that the workers were being compelled to walk on the busy road risking their lives; he added that a number of accidents had taken place due to this since the beginning of Ramadan.
He also said, the whole area had turned into a market due to the temporary shops, and added that, the situation became intolerable in the mornings and afternoons when more than 30,000 workers of CEPZ start and end their workday.
Farukul Islam, a cloth shop owner at Agrabad area, said he had setup his shop by managing a few ruling party men of the area, and added that the ruling party men and police took Tk40 to Tk100 from each shop, everyday.
