Despite being declared an individual police station nine years ago, Gorai highway police have yet to get land for their own station in Tangail district, making it difficult for them to run their day-to-day operation smoothly.
Sources in highway police said, Gorai station, which until June 2005 operated under Mirzapur police station, is currently being run at a rented house in Gorai area under Mirzapur upazila and has a 26-member team including one officer-in-charge, two sub-inspectors, one sergeant and one assistant traffic sub-inspector.
Sources said a proposal was submitted to the authorities concerned on April 13, 2011 requesting to allot 57 decimals of abandoned land of the Roads and Highways Department at Sohagpara in Mirzapur.
Money had been allocated as well for the construction of the police station, but due to bureaucratic complexity no land has been assigned for the police station, they said.
Around the same time that Gorai was declared to have an individual highway police station, the stations in Shalna, Savar and a few other places had been declared the same, and the construction of their own station building is nearly complete by now, the sources added.
The police station also lacks adequate number of vehicles to monitor the stretch of highway under its jurisdiction.
Jobaidul Alam, OC of Gorai station, said it was too difficult to watch over 45km highway between Srifaltoli of Kaliakoir, Gazipur and Korotia of Tangail Sadar upazila, and another 28km between Madarjani and Kalihati, with only one pick-up and three motorcycles.
“Over 10,000 vehicles commute to 23 north and northwest districts moved via the two-lane Dhaka-North Bengal highway every day. If there is any mishap with the vehicles anywhere on the highway, a long tailback of traffic is created within a few minutes,” the OC said.
“We need to borrow wreckers from the district police to tow away vehicles, and lack of ambulances makes it difficult for us to send people injured in accidents to hospital immediately. A lot of casualties could be avoided if we had our own wreckers and ambulances,” he said.
“We cannot keep the vehicles damaged in accidents, or the ones that we seize during highway patrol, as we do not have our own station. In the emergency cases, the district police has to come and work with us. All these problems could be solved if we had a permanent base and proper logistic support.”
Asaduzzaman, deputy inspector-general of highway police, said: “A demi-official letter has been sent requesting an allocation of 57 decimals of abandoned land owned by the RHD.”
