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Download PDF Commuters suffered badly on weekend yesterday as hundreds of vehicles got stuck in gridlock for hours in major thoroughfares of the city following re-routing of traffic from Tongi Diversion Road in Tejgaon.
Police diverted vehicles at Mohakhali and FDC crossing as the agitating students of Dhaka Polytechnic Institute vandalised passenger buses and clashed with police in front of the institute starting at about 8:45 in the morning to protest the death of a fellow student on Friday.
Though the Tongi Diversion Road was opened for vehicular movement at 2:30pm, it took about a couple of hours more for the traffic pressure to ease on other roads.
“It took me over one hour to reach Karwan Bazar from Banani rail crossing while usually, it takes about 20 minutes,” Abdul Gafur, a grocer of Khilkhet, told The Daily Star getting down from a passenger bus at 3:15pm.
After the students damaged four buses on Tongi Diversion Road, police redirected vehicles from Mohakhali and Rainbow Crossing apprehending further vandalism, putting pressure on all the roads scattered over Gulshan, Tejgaon, Mirpur, Mohammadpur, Dhanmondi, Farmgate, Moghbazar and Ramna.
“I couldn’t imagine I would have to suffer this distress on a weekend,” Shahida Akhter, a middle-aged mother who took her eight-year-old daughter Rashida to Shishu Park, said. She was caught in traffic jam for one and half hours, she added.
While hundreds of trapped commuters kept sweating in the gridlock under the sweltering heat, traffic police were seen struggling to control the traffic.
Lined up bumper to bumper, buses, private cars, pickups, three-wheelers and taxicabs could advance inch by inch when they were on the move.
“The pressure was most felt on the VIP Road (Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue) and Rampura (Progati Sarani),” Jasim Uddin, joint commissioner of traffic police, told The Daily Star.
The busy Tongi Diversion Road was first blocked at about 8:45 Friday night when the agitating students of the Polytechnic Institute started damaging vehicles as a second year student of civil engineering was crushed under the wheels of a bus at Satrasta point.
Vehicular movement in the road remained suspended till the early hours of yesterday as police closed it to avert further vandalism.
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