AL leaders, activists throng Suhrawardy Udyan

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, also the party president, will arrive at Suhrawardy Udyan at 10am. The council will begin around 10:30am through hoisting the national flag. Hundreds of councillors and delegates from different districts reached at the council premise on Saturday morning. Law enforcing agencies are allowing them to enter the venue after searching with security devices. The council is scheduled to begin 10am Saturday. The whole area surrounding the venue has turned festive with the councillors and delegates. In addition, many working committee members have already reached to the venue. A total of 50,000 participants are expected to attend the council. Law enforcers were seen deployed in the surrounding areas of the venue premises to ensure security and also to maintain the traffic restrictions imposed by the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP). Police had already made the traffic inside the Dhaka University area limited while the road from Paltan-National Press Club-Shahbagh were seen closed from 7am in the morning. In addition, the route through Science Lab intersection to Elephant Road also remained closed from 7am. People, mostly office-goers were seen waiting for bus at the stoppages while many were seen walking toward destinations as the police has started implementing their traffic restriction plan at different spots. No vehicle was allowed to enter into the Manik Mia Avenue -Farmagte route from 8am. People were seen getting down from the buses and walking towards the streets to reach their destinations.Students, patients may sufferThe traffic restrictions on different city roads may lead to huge traffic gridlock that would suffer the Dhaka city dwellers, mostly office goers, patients and the students appearing for different examinations. The council venue is very close to the three major hospitals- Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Birdem and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University- where patients and their relatives may find it difficult to reach those hospitals, in case of emergencies. Usually ambulance, fire service, hospital ambulances, media and other emergency services remain outside of restrictions on major events like strikes or other mega events, however, the DMP did not came up with any such announcement this time. Students of different educational institutions, close to the council venue, may also have to face hurdles. Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology is holding an admission test today to be attended by some little over 9000 candidates. The exam began at 9am. Students and guardians earlier feared that students may not reach at the BUET exam centre on time due to the restrictions imposed in the surrounding areas of Dhaka University, close to BUET. However, the Dhaka Tribune cannot verify how many of them reached on time in exam, as of filing the report at 9am. In addition, test examination for grade X is ongoing at many schools where candidates may have to face hurdle to reach their examinations, if they did not came out early considering the traffic restrictions.