Md Akter Hossain, a conductor in profession with no driving license, was at the wheel of a Victor Classic Paribahan bus that ran over and killed singer and music composer Parvez Rob in Dhaka's Turag area early this month.
The conductor Akhter, usually assigned to collect fare from passengers, was driving the bus while driver Md Sumon was sitting beside him when the duo took the bus out into the street on September 5, said police officials after arresting the duo in a case filed over the death of musician Parvez Rob.
A team of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Detective Branch's (DB) North Division arrested the driver Md Sumon and conductor Md Akhtar Hossain from Narayanganj and Shariatpur, respectively, on Friday night, said DB Deputy Commissioner (DC Media) Masudur Rahman.
DC Masudur said both Sumon and Akhter confessed to running over Parvez during the preliminary interrogation.
"Akhtar was driving the bus while Sumon was sitting beside him when the accident took place. Akhtar was speeding when he ran over Parvez and then proceeded to flee the scene, leaving Parvez critically injured,” he said.
The musician was rushed to Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital, where doctors declared him dead.
Only two days after Parvez was killed, his son Yasir Alvi Rob was also hospitalized and his friend Mehedi Hasan Choton was killed after being run over by another bus of the same transport company in Abdullahpur.
Not a surprising picture in Dhaka
Assistants of bus drivers – popularly known as a conductors - taking the wheel and causing fatalities is quite common in Dhaka. Usually drivers, popularly known as "Ustad", allow their fellow assistants to take the wheel to give them primary driving lessons, leading in many cases, deaths.
The Suprovat Paribahan bus, that killed Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP) student Abrar Ahmed Chowdhury on March 19 this year, was also being driven by a ‘conductor’.
On August 2018, a city bus that hit the sports utility vehicle carrying Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal at Dhaka’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar area was also being driven by a helper named Manik.
A way of learning how to drive
Most bus drivers in Bangladesh, who operate mini vehicles, usually learn driving from their Ustads.
The Road Transport Act 2018, that got parliament's passage in September last year, defines a conductor as a person responsible to guide passengers to board and off-board the vehicle as well collect fares from them.
However, in many cases they (conductors) take the wheels, to gather driving skills, thanks to lack of professional institutes or government initiatives to give lessons to public transport drivers.
Mozammel Haque Chowdhury, secretary general of Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity, said it has become a habit of drivers to have the conductors taking the wheel on different occasions.
“The first step is when the drivers allow the conductors to park the vehicle, and then subsequently get them to bring the vehicle from the garages to bus stands. Once the conductor gains the driver’s trust, he is then allowed to sit at the wheel to make short trips. This is how a driver is trained in Bangladesh,” he said.
There are no formal institutes or training centres run by either the government or transport owners to create a skilled drivers in the country and this cannot by any means to be ignored, said Mozammel.
“Investments are needed to conduct training centres for driving, and as the country lacks such centres, people are losing their lives in the hands of unskilled drivers while owners are losing their valuable assets,” he said.
Running public transport by unskilled drivers also costs owners as they have to spend a huge amount of money to get a car out of the dumping ground, when it is seized following an accident, he said.
He urged owners not to handover their vehicles to unskilled or unlicensed drivers for the sake of reducing the number of road fatalities in the country.
Dhaka Road Transport Owners Association (DRTOA) General Secretary Khandaker Enayet Ullah said they are going to introduce the "dope test" for bus drivers in the capital from December 1 and is holding discussions with owners and unions and drivers so that no unfit and unskilled driver sits at the wheel of public transport.
“An awareness campaign is ongoing at the BRTA premises to create awareness to drivers to restore discipline in the transport sector and reduce frequent road crashes in the capital,” he said.
“It is the responsibility of the BRTA to conduct mobile courts to find out such problems. If they find any such indiscipline and take action, we are always with them,” he added.
Dhaka Tribune called BRTA director (enforcement) Md. Yousub Ali Mollah and Mofiz Uddin Ahmed, Additional Commissioner (traffic) of DMP, over the phone for their comments, but the calls remained unanswered.
