Don't target
vehicles during shutdowns, 'road blockades'

Transport operators in the public and private sectors
have requested activists, members and supporters of different political parties
and organisations not to target vehicles during any
of their street campaigns including strikes, shutdowns and 'road blockades'.

Following extensive damages to vehicles, most of the
private transport companies, and even the state-owned Bangladesh Road Transport
Corporation (BRTC), have been compelled to curtail their respective fleet of
vehicles, operators said on Sunday.

Besides transport companies including the BRTC,
Bangladesh Railway (BR) has also been forced to curtail the number of carriages
from several trains as dozens of railway coaches and wagons were damaged during
the recent political violence, according to relevant officials at the BR.

Many owners of private vehicles in the big cities are now
forced to use hired ones, at least temporarily, as their cars have been damaged
in the recent spate of political violence.

Transports including CNG (Compressed Natural Gas)-run
three-wheelers or rickshaws are now their mode of transport.

Several hundred private vehicles including those used for
public transportations under private transport companies, and dozens of buses
and trucks belonging to the BRTC have either been burned or damaged before, during
or after the opposition-led general strikes across the country over the last
one year.

However, the attacks on vehicles have intensified since
January this year when the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) started giving
verdicts against those engaged in crimes against humanity during 1971
Bangladesh Liberation War.

"We are
compiling the details regularly to update the figure of private and public
transports damaged in political violence," a senior official at the
Bangladesh Road Transport Authority said.

Besides striking political activists, agitated members of
the public, mainly industrial workers and students, also often engage in vandalising vehicles in case of any street accidents
involving their colleagues or class mates, police said.

Meanwhile, besides carriages and wagons, railway tracks
and a number of locomotives have also been burned or damaged during the recent
strikes, said BR officials.

A passenger train became a target of sabotage recently
while it was travelling at night to Chittagong with some 600 passengers, near Comilla. None, however, was killed, though dozens were
injured in the derailment, thanks to the cautious driving of the train by
experienced loco-masters.

"At least two
dozens of carriages, including some air-conditioned ones, have been burned or
severely damaged over the two months," a senior official at Bangladesh
Railway said without giving details.

Besides carriages, nearly a kilometre-long
railway track was also damaged at different spots across the country, leading
to a huge financial loss for the railway, he said.

Railway officials claimed that vandalising,
burning and causing damages to carriages, locomotives and tacks have destroyed
railway properties worth billions of Taka.

Meanwhile BRTC has alone incurred a loss of Tk 250 million over the last four months, as activists
burned and damaged more than 150 buses including several double-deckers.

"It is our
fervent call to all concerned not to burn or damage public and private vehicles
including cars, buses, trucks, tankers and lorries during any political
campaign or public protests," a leader of Dhaka Bus Truck Owners
Association made an appeal.

"We look to
support from political parties in our favour, and
hope there will be no more attacks on our properties, including cars,"
said a businessman in Shantinagar Area.

Several vehicles in private use or those pressed into
public transport services are, almost routinely, being burned or damaged on the
eve of every strike across the country.

Source: http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/index.php?ref=MjBfMDVfMTNfMTNfMV85MF8xNjkyNjY=