Hundreds of people from all strata of life boarding rickshaws, rickshaw vans, pushcarts, horse-drawn carts, bicycles, palanquins, and in trolleys and wheel chairs used by the disabled joined the unique procession.

The procession started from Chittagong Press Club premises at around 11:00am, paraded some major thoroughfares of the port city for about an hour and ended at Amtala in Reazuddin Bazar area. The participants carried placards with the slogan "Shall we go back to the non-mechanised and primitive age?"

Consumer rights' protection committee, Chittagong unit, organised the procession.

Earlier, a brief rally chaired by committee chief Khorshed Alam Sujan demanded immediate withdrawal of the increased fuel price.

Speakers at the rally said the price hike will adversely affect the national economy and all sections of people directly or indirectly. The poorer section of the society will be the worst sufferers, they added.

Key sectors like agriculture, industry and transport will be in peril shortly due to the price hike of fuel, they said.

Those who spoke included lawyer Rana Das Gupta, Dr Dilip Dey, journalist Asif Siraj, city ward commissioner Tarek Solaiman Selim, Sabiha Musa, cultural activists Kamrul Hasan Badal, Shahriar Khaled and Jasmine Sultana Paru, women's rights activists Momena Akhtar Nayan and Jasmina Khanam.