Now, Dhaka school students turn monitors of unruly traffic

The police in many big cities often rope in school students for traffic- awareness drives. But how about students taking over traffic management altogether and catching even police and VIPs for failing to comply with the rules and regulations?

This is what is happening in Dhaka and major Bangladeshi cities and towns the last two days. The trigger for the ‘takeover’was the July death of two school students, who were run over as two buses raced each other. It was later found that the vehicles did not have valid papers to run in the city.

Dhaka is notorious for its bad traffic and the unruly public transport operations; accidents are common. The tragedy of the children’s deaths was made worse by the insensitive remarks of minister Shajahan Khan, who tried to play down the accident during a press conference.

As agitated students hit the streets demanding enforcement of rules and resignation of the minister, the police turned tough on them.

Public sympathy

Pictures of policemen lathi-charging the students and even arresting some went viral on the social media. Quickly, the protest turned into a movement with parents and the population at large joining in. As the agitation gathered momentum with college/university students pitching in, the police relented.

Then, the students started to check papers of vehicles. . Though the streets are chock-a-block, the public is siding with the agitators as the movement has exposed the lawlessness on Dhaka streets.

Over the last two days, at least two ministers’ cars were caught for blatantly flouting traffic rules; they would have gone scot-free earlier. Shockingly, the checking revealed that many government and even police vehicles did not have valid documents, nor their drivers licences.

‘Spontaneous movement’

Talking to BusinessLine, senior editors in Dhaka termed the spontaneous movement a rarity in the highly politically-polarised Bangladeshi society. But many expect it to fizzle out post the weekly holiday on Friday.

Some expect the over-zealous Awami League supporters to suppress the movement, which offers the BNP-led Opposition and fundamentalist forces to use it as a plank.

The Sheikh Hasina government is running low on popularity. The party is widely believed to have won four of the five municipal elections this year by use of force, including the police, against the opposition.

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