Traffic thrown into a tailspin

Agitating residents of Karail slum swoop on a vehicle on Airport Road in Dhaka yesterday. inset, slum dwellers block the Gulshan-Mohakhali link road, triggering citywide traffic disruption. They were protesting a government drive that left many people homeless on Wednesday. Photo: Rashed SumonStaff Correspondent

Thousands of people suffered in huge tailbacks as Karail slum dwellers and Dhaka university students blocked roads in the capital's Mohakhali and Shahbagh areas from morning till afternoon yesterday.

Airport Road traffic came to a halt around 9:00am, the peak business hour, as over a thousand people put up barricades at Chairmanbari, Amtoli intersection and Mohakhali Wireless Gate, protesting their eviction from Karail slum on Wednesday.

DU Jagannath Hall students demonstrated in Shahbagh area, obstructing vehicular movement from around 11:00am.

They demanded justice for assaults on minorities by a group of religious bigots irate over a drama at Fatehpur High School in Kaliganj upazila, Satkhira.

The agitating students withdrew the blockade around 1:45pm following a home ministry assurance of a probe into the alleged incident and at the request of DU Vice-Chancellor Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique.

At Mohakhali, people who had been evicted from the Karail slum in government action were joined by those in fear of losing homes through a similar drive.

Police stopped traffic on the Gulshan-Mohakhali link road and Kemal Atatruk Avenue, suspecting the slum dwellers could vandalise vehicles, Rafiqul Islam, officer-in-charge of Gulshan Police Station, told The Daily Star.

The ensuing tailback stretched several kilometres on Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue, Navy Headquarters to Mohakhali and Tajuddin Ahmed Sarani.

Traffic on all roads at Gulshan, Banani and Mohakhali came to a standstill. The congestions had an impact on other city streets as well.

The scorching heat of April compounded the distress of commuters, including office-goers and students, who found themselves stuck on their way to their various destinations. Those travelling with children and elderly people were the worst sufferers.

"I remained stranded near my office for two hours," said Naimul Hasan, an executive of a private company on Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue.

Nafis Alam Khan, a commuter from Uttara, said it took him three and a half hours to get to his office at Farmgate by car.

"Reaching near Navy Headquarters, I found a long tailback ahead and many vehicles taking detours," he said. "I then headed through Dhaka Cantonment and came out through Jahangir Gate."

Many HSC examinees, who had their English first paper test yesterday, were late for the examinations.

Around 12:15pm, law enforcers managed to convince the agitating slum dwellers to clear the roads, said OC Rafiqul Islam. Traffic congestion in Gulshan-Mohakhali areas started to ease around 2:00pm.

Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited along with the district administration knocked down over two thousand slum houses and shops set up illegally near T&T School, Wireless Gate, around the BTCL satellite station and on the Gulshan lakeside.

Hasina Begum, a domestic aide who was left homeless after the drive, stationed herself on a sidewalk with her meagre household belongings.

"I had been living in the Jheelpar slum for the last five years along with three children and my rickshaw-puller husband," she said.

"Now I don't know where to go."

Md Selim Hossain, executive magistrate of Dhaka district, who led the drive Wednesday, said the administration had taken the action in compliance with a High Court order.

The HC on January 25 in a suo moto rule directed the government to remove within two months all the illegal structures on a 170-acre land owned by BTCL, Public Works Department and Ministry of Information and Communication Technology.

Known as Karail and T&T Bosti, the biggest slums in the capital, along with thousands of small makeshift structures occupy a large portion of that land by the Gulshan-Banani lake.

"We freed the BTCL land of illegal occupancy in Wednesday's drive," said Selim.

"The next drives are expected in Karail," he said, adding it depends on what position the government takes on the HC order.

DU STUDENTS' DEMO
The students' barricades at Shahbagh intersection stopped traffic on roads up to Matsya Bhaban, New Market, Science Laboratory, Ruposhi Bangla Hotel and Dhaka Medical College and Hospital.

The patients bound for DMCH and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University went through a terrible ordeal.

The students cooled down on being informed that the Satkhira police superintendent and officer-in-charge of Kaliganj Police Station had been closed for negligence in duties, Syed Nurul Islam, additional deputy commissioner of police (Ramna zone), told The Daily Star.

Palash Devnath, a post-graduate student of DU, told The Daily Star that the attacks on minorities took place over four days from March 30 centring on a play at Fatehpur High School on March 27.

"At one stage of the drama, an actor mistakenly uttered some words that made a section of the audience angry," said Palash, who himself is a witness.

The matter was published in a newspaper on March 29, fuelling religious bigotry.

A group of Muslim zealots attacked minority community members and set fire to a number of houses, he added.