After an intense student movement for road safety that took place across Bangladesh for nine days, the situation went back to normal on Tuesday.
There was no report of any student protest anywhere in Dhaka or elsewhere in the country. Traffic has also been fairly normal.
No gathering of students was seen on Tuesday in the Shahbagh, Science Lab intersection, Rampura, Badda, Mirpur 10, Uttara’s House Building areas and Bashundhara Residential Area – the key locations of the protests in Dhaka.
Classes resumed at the educational institutions as well.
Deputy Commissioner (Ramna division) Maruf Hossain Sardar of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) said additional police personnel had been deployed in the city to maintain the calm situation and ensure hassle-free movement.
Public transport services in Dhaka, which remained suspended during the protests due to “lack of security on the streets,” resumed on Monday, but the number of public buses plying the streets was less than usual.
As the Traffic Week 2018 is in progress in Bangladesh since Sunday, traffic police were seen checking vehicles in Dhaka.
A mobile team of the DMP, led by Executive Magistrate Moshiur Rahman, and five mobile courts of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) are working on the streets during the Traffic Week.
“Our mobile courts aim to prevent traffic irregularities,” BRTA Deputy Director (Engineering) Masud Alam said.
Office-goers, business owners and street vendors, who suffered immensely during the protests due to lack of public transport, expressed satisfaction as the situation has gone back to normal in Dhaka.
Md Siddiqur Rahman president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) who said on Monday that businesses were being harmed due to the students’ movement, thanked the students for going back to their classrooms following Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s request.
Dhaka came to a near standstill after the death of two college students in a road accident on July 29 sparked a student protest that spread across the city, and eventually the country.
On Monday, police clashed with private university students throughout the day in Rampura and the Bashundhara Residential Area. The students had tried to stage protests against the attacks on students that took place in Dhaka on Saturday and Sunday.
The government accepted the students’ demands for road safety.
On Monday, the Cabinet Division approved the draft Road Transport Act, 2018 with the maximum penalty of five years in jail and a Tk500,000 fine for fatal road accidents. The bill is scheduled to be placed before parliament on September 10.
