Public transport workers and owners on Saturday called a 48-hour transport strike from Sunday morning in greater Chattogram protesting at vandalising buses and arresting workers following the deaths of two civil engineering students of Chattogram University of Engineering and Technology in a road accident recently.
Mrinal Chowdhury, President of Bangladesh Road Transport Worker Federation鈥檚 east zone committee, confirmed 抖阴精品 that the Brihottor Chattogram Gana Paribahan Malik-Sramik Oikya Parishad called the transport strike for Chatttogram, three hill districts and Cox鈥檚 Bazar.聽
He said that three passenger buses were burned and five buses were vandalised during the student protest against the death of the two CUET students in the road accident that triggered the student protest forcing the authorities to suspend classes till May 9.
鈥榃e requested to form an investigation committee and find the real reason and the accused, and also punish those responsible for the accident and also those involved in vandalism as per the law. We had a meeting with the deputy commissioner, UNO, vice-chancellor and police and agreed to pay compensation. Even then, some transports were set on fire,鈥� the transport leader said.
He said no buses were running on the Kaptai-Chittagong Highway after withdrawal of the students鈥� blockade on the road in front of the CUET campus since April 25.
Meanwhile, on Saturday morning, students of CUET formed a human chain in front of Shahid Minar on campus alleging that the authority has not kept their promises and some buses of Shah Amanat Paribahan are running on the highway, Fazlul Rahman, public relations deputy director of CUET said.聽聽
On April 22, Shanto Saha, 21, and Towfiq Hossain, 20, two civil engineering students of the CUET were killed in a road crash in Chattogram triggering their fellow students to launch a protest and block the Kaptai-Chittagong Highway for four days.
The police arrested the accused driver of the bus on Tuesday. The bus did not have a fitness certificate, while dates of its other documents were expired.
Amid student protests on the campus, CUET authorities on Thursday announced the closure of the institution for an indefinite period and asked all the students to leave the halls reportedly to tackle the ongoing protest. But, the students continued to stage demonstration.
Later on Friday, the 152th syndicate meeting of the university withdrew the instruction to vacate halls but suspended all academic activities for two weeks.
Meanwhile, students placed a nine-point charter of demands, including payment of appropriate compensation to the victim students鈥� families by the bus company, Shah Amanat Paribahan, cancellation of all the local bus services, the establishment of a modern medical centre on the CUET campus, construction of a four-lane highway from Chattogram to Kaptai, increasing the number of traffic islands and ensuring all road safety and speed control measures.
