Trucks are carrying passengers at night from places in in Dhaka to different districts main in the north exposing them to risks of traffic accidents.
Cashing in on the shortage of buses, trains and river vessels just before Eid, some truckers are making quick money by carrying passengers.
Several trucks which ply between Dhaka and northern districts carrying goods and vegetables are now carrying people, mainly day labourers, for low fares.
Day labourers were waiting at Karwan Bazar, Motijheel and Fakirapool at night on Thursday got on trucks to leave Dhaka for destinations in the north in the presence of the police.
Sabur Miah, a man from Rangpur, who got on a truck at Karwan Bazaar to go to his village home, told New Age that he was travelling in the truck as he could go to his village home by paying the truck driver only Tk 70.
'I am rickshaw puller. I want to celebrate Eid with my family in Rangpur. If I go by bus, I would need to spend Tk 350. But in a truck, I can go home by spending only Tk 70,' he said.
Sattar Dhali, the driver of a truck, said that they were picking up people in the presence of the police as 'we pay the police regularly.'
The Tejgaon police officer-in-charge, Mahbubur Rahman, however, told New Age that he had instructed his colleagues to stop trucks drivers from carrying people.
Despite strict monitoring, some day labourers could get on trucks at dead of night and travel for low fares, he said.
The government has asked the law enforcement agencies to stop carrying passengers on trucks to contain road accidents after several accidents claimed several hundred people in two years.
On July 11, at least 44 schoolboys were killed and 15 others injured when a pick-up van carrying them veered off the road and plunged into a ditch at Mirsarai, 30 miles off Chiattgong.
The children, all primary school students aged between 12 and 14 years, were returning home after watching a football match when the traffic accident, one of the worst in recent times, took place on the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway.
On July 23, 2010, 13 people were killed and 15 injured in an accident on the Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway when an overloaded truck skidded off the road and fell into a ditch.
The day labourers, mostly brickfield workers, had boarded the truck for a fare of Tk 40 each from different places in Dhaka and Mirzapur in Tangail., said one of the injured, Abdul Barek.
The Highway Police chief, deputy inspector general Humayun Kabir, told New Age that some day labourers were travelling in trucks as they needed to spend less money on their journey.
'We have asked the authorities and officials concerned to take measures so that trucks cannot carry passengers,' he said.
The police officials claim that the allegations of taking money by the police from truckers were not true.
Source : New Age
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