Zihan Saba was sobbing as she entered her school at 2:18pm yesterday. A student of class two, she was 18 minutes late for her second-term exam.
Saba's mother, who accompanied her to Siddheswari Girls High School on Bailey Road in the capital, said their rickshaw got stuck in apparently a never-ending traffic gridlock at Malibagh intersection.
They waited there for half an hour before starting to walk fast down the road. The kid had already been suffering from nerves.
Cab driver Elias at Sonargaon intersection of Karwan Bazar said it took him around four hours from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport to Dholaipar in Old Dhaka.
"I started at 9:30am and reached Dholaipar at about 2:00pm--usually a trip of around one and a half hours," he said.
Like Saba and Elias, thousands of people had to pass through untold sufferings yesterday, as almost all the city streets were chock-a-block with traffic.
A large number of important streets and link roads were off-limits to regular traffic for over two hours to ease the movement of motorcades carrying Indian National Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Sri Lanka's First Lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa and Maldives vice president's wife Ilham Hussain along with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and ministers.
The VVIPs were in the city to attend a two-day conference on autism yesterday.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police earlier in a press release said it would regulate traffic on roads from Sonargaon Hotel intersection to Bijay Sarani to Savar yesterday from 9:30am to 10:00am for smooth transport of VVIPs to the National Memorial.
Besides, from 5:00pm to 7:00pm, routes from Ruposhi Bangla Hotel through Kakrail, High Court, Zero Point and Rajuk to Bangabhaban would be restricted.
The VVIPs were scheduled to leave Bangabhaban for the airport at 7:00pm.
"We tried to ease congestions and we did not control traffic before the VVIPs' arrival. The restriction was imposed only during the VVIP movements," Deputy Commissioner (Traffic) Khandaker Nazmul Akhter of DMP (south) said.
If a busy area of the capital is jammed for an hour or two, the rest of the city feels the impact, said another DMP high official, preferring anonymity.
Yesterday, the officer added, the city dwellers on almost every road experienced long tailbacks, starting with the VVIP movements in the morning.
An Uttara resident said he left house for his Farmgate office at 10:30am.
He was more than an hour late for work as he was caught in a jam at a level crossing near the Army Stadium at 11:45am. There, he had to spend about 40 minutes.
From the level crossing to Farmgate his car moved by inches.
He reached his office at 12:25pm spending an hour and 55 minutes on road. Usually, it takes 40 minutes to one hour and 15 minutes.
An East Shewrapara resident said he waited at Shewrapara bus stand for at least half an hour for a bus to go to Bashundhara residential area in Badda.
He got a bus but had to get down on Gulshan Link Road as it was moving very slowly in heavy traffic.
Finally, a walk of around three kilometres to his destination was the last resort.
Source : The Daily Star
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