Around 700 residents of Siddhirganj in Narayanganj on Saturday blocked the busy Dhaka-Chattogram highway demanding a solution to the prolonged gas crisis.
Witnesses said that agitating people blocked the Dhaka-bound lane of the highway at Mouchak from 10:00am to 11:00am to press their demand. The sudden blockade caused heavy traffic congestion on the busy highway and nearby roads.
One of the protesters Abdus Salam said that several hundred registered consumers of Titas gas were suffering day after day due to an acute supply shortage.
鈥楩or the past three years we have been suffering. The gas in our area is available only for an hour, from 3:00am to 4:00am in a period of 24 hours,鈥� he said.
Local people, mostly residents of Narayanganj City Corporation鈥檚 Ward No-3 under the Siddhirganj Thana, said that their repeated complaints to the authority fell on deaf ears.
Another resident Sultan Uddin said that while legal customers suffered in the acute crisis, a section of the rogue officials at Titas gas provided illegal gas connections to unregistered users.
Siddhirganj police officer-in-charge Abu Bakar Siddik said that vehicular movement restored on the highway as the protesters left after an hour.
Demonstrators threatened for tougher agitations if the Titas authority failed to address the problem soon.
