People risk their lives to reach home to celebrate Eid with family by travelling on the roof of a bus on Tuesday.
With Eid-ul-Fitr only days away, more and more people are crowding Dhaka’s numerous bus counters to get a ticket to go home
The rail stations, this year, have failed to draw a large number of people.
An ‘unannounced’ Eid vacation started from Tuesday, a public holiday because of Shab-e-Qadr, although Wednesday is the last working day before the Eid.
Hundreds of people thronged the Gabtoli, Shyamoli, Kalyanpur, Malibagh, Sayedabaad and other bus counters braving rain and bad weather for tickets.
Many have returned their tickets, procured in advance, as the Jamaat-e-Islami had announced a 48-hour shutdown starting Aug 12. Jamaat has called the strike protesting against a High Court verdict declaring its registration ‘illegal and void’ as a political party
“The crowd’s thinner compared to the last year,” Md Mujahid, in charge of ‘Shoukhin Paribahan’ bus counter at Gabtoli said.
‘Hanif Enterprise’ chief booking counter manager ‘Roni’ agreed.
Hasibur Rahman easily booked a ticket on a Jessore-bound bus on Tuesday morning. “I thought it would be troublesome and time consuming but got it without any trouble,” he said.
Although bus counters were fairly crowded, there was no real difficulty getting tickets.
Special train
Authorities have introduced special trains from Tuesday to cope up with the rush of commuters ahead of Eid.
The Dewanganj bound first special train of the day left 40 minutes late, officials said.
Two pair of special trains each will operate before and after Eid on the Dhaka-Parbatipur-Khulna and Chittagong-Chandpur routes.
Railway officials say there have not been any real scrambles for tickets so far.
They expected the crowd to rise with the day.
Asked whether trains would operate during the Jamaat shutdown, Kamalapur station Manager Khairul Bashir said, “Train services will be unaffected by shutdowns.”
Source: Bd news24
