Students of different educational institutions in Chittagong city, who have been on the streets for the past few days demanding safer roads, have said that they will return home and to classes from Monday.
Their announcement came after a meeting with the district’s Deputy Commissioner (DC) Elius Hossain at his office in the city on Sunday afternoon, said the DC’s Staff Officer Md Ramiz Alam.
He said the students had verbally placed several demands to ensure safer roads in the prot city during their meeting with the DC, which took place between 3:30pm to 4:30pm.
The demands include introducing common bus services for students, building overpasses, speed breakers and underpasses on the city streets, assigning traffic sergeants at necessary points to tackle rush of vehicles every day after classes end and setting up designated bus stoppages at different points of the city.
Ramiz, also an executive magistrate of the district administration, confirmed that the protesting students told the DC they would return home after Elius assured of meeting their demands as soon as possible.
He said the district administration would try to meet as many as possible of the students’ demands coordinating with the Chittagong City Corporation and other local administrations. “The rest will be forwarded to the government for implementation.”
After two students of Shaheed Ramiz Uddin Cantonment School and College were killed under the wheels of a speeding bus on Dhaka’s Airport Road, students of that institution had taken to streets on July 29 demanding justice for their deceased peers.
From the next day, they were joined on the streets by thousands of students of different institutions pushing the authorities to meet the demand and ensure safer roads.
Over the past few days, their movement, calling for implementation of a nine-point charter of demands, has spread across the country. The students in Chittagong city had joined the protests last week.
