Disorder in transport sector was not created in a day

The ongoing student protest is the outburst of years of pent-up grievances, said Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) Mayor Sayeed Khokon as he painted a gloomy picture of the country's anarchic public transportation system.

The mayor made the remarks at a view exchanging meeting at Nagar Bhaban with students, their guardians and teachers of different schools and colleges of the city on “Safe roads and our duties”.

“A disorder has been created in the public transportation sector due to the reckless attitude of the workers. It was not created in one day. And now we are seeing the outburst of accumulated grievances,” he said.

He slammed transport owners and workers, saying that many of them run unfit buses, drive buses without licences and are underage.

“We have conducted drives against them several times along with the help of other agencies, but they keep their buses off the streets during the drive and return them to the roads after the drive,” the mayor said.

Acknowledging his failure to ensure safe roads for city dwellers, the mayor said the city corporations do not have their own forces, for which they failed to continue their mobile court drives round the year.

Supporting the movement of the students, Sayeed Khokon said everybody including the prime minister has accepted their logical demands, and the government has already stared implementation of those.

He, however, warned those who will try to create anarchy centring the movement of the students.

A good number of students of different schools and colleges who attended the meeting agreed to return to classes, but demanded to ensure road safety properly.

“We have full confidence in the prime minister and our logical demands have some achievements, so we think we should return to our classes,” said Maisha, a student of Viqarunnisa Noon School and College.

Poran Shah Bhuiyan, a student of KL Jubilee High School and College, urged the mayor to rename two city roads after the two victims of Shaheed Ramiz Uddin Cantonment College.

Principal of Viqarunnisa Noon School and College Nazneen Ferdous said the demands of the students were logical and government has accepted it.

She said the prime minister is monitoring the implementation of the demands herself, which means students have become successful, and they should return to classes now.