Thousands of Dhaka bound passengers were facing traffic gridlock on different highways since Thursday night. Passengers, especially patients, children and old people had to suffer untold miseries due to the long tailback.
A 70-km tailback was created on Dhaka-Tangail Highway since Thursday night as a bus was stuck up at Kaliakoir Bridge while two loaded trucks skidded off the road at western side of the Bangabandhu Bridge.
Huge gridlocks were also created on connecting roads-- Alenga to Modhupur, Joydebpur to Bhaluka, Chandra to Joydebpur, Baipail-Savar-Gabtoli, Baipail-Ashulia, Aricha-Nabinagar following the traffic congestion on the highway. The North Bengal-bound people are facing untold sufferings due the traffic congestion for hours together.
A 40-km tailback was also created on Dhaka-Chittagong Highway since Thursday following a road accident in Daudkandi upazila, putting thousands of people to serious inconveniences.
"A 48 hours countrywide shutdown on Tuesday and Wednesday enforced by Jamaat is blamed for the unusual gridlock on highways as thousands of passengers started to leave their village home to workplaces since Thursday," Khandaker Enayetullah, Secretary General of Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Samity told The New Nation yesterday.
A Hanif Paribahan bus which left Nageshwari under Kurigram district at 8:30pm Thursday required more than 10 hours to reach Dhaka, Morshed Ali who was traveling by the bus said.
Another Hanif Paribahan bus left Dhaka for Nageshwari on Thursday night could reach Gaibandha in 20 hours. 'The bus was supposed to reach Nageshwari at 4:00am on Friday, the driver said.
Md Ruhul Amin a passenger from Bhurungamari under Kurigram told this reporter over phone that most of the transports of Keya Paribahan, Jannat Enterprise, Kanti Paribahan, Bismillah Paribahan were planning to bring their passengers hiring small buses as the scheduled buses were stuck up in the gridlock.
However, Sub-inspector Mohammad Shahin of Daudkandi Highway Police Station under Comilla said two covered vans collided head-on at Raipur in the upazila around 9am, disrupting traffic on the busy highway.
The accident caused a 30-km tailback from Chandina to Gomti Bridge in Daudkandi. Huge tailback was also created on connecting roads- Gouripur-Homna, Gouripur-Matlab and Gouripur-Kachua-following the traffic jam on the highway. Motiur Rahman Tuku, a photojournalist said, he started from WAPDA crossing in Magura yesterday morning at around 10:00 on way to Dhaka by Hanif Paribahan and reached Savar at around 7:00 pm on Friday.
It took him nine hours instead of usual six hours, he told this reporter over mobile phone. He said he was worried whether he could reach even by midnight on the day.