A total of 153 state-owned BRTC buses have been vandalised and 32 set on fire during the recent Opposition strikes and blockades, Communications Minister Obaidul Quader has said.
This raised apprehensions of less frequent public transport services.
Quader told a Secretariat news conference on Saturday that the BRTC have suffered a loss of around TK 42 crores due to the violence.
The minister said 5000 private-owned vehicles have been vandalised and around 1000 others burnt down in 2013 so far by Opposition activists during strikes and blockades, he added.
Jamaat-e-Islami has been on the streets all the year round since its top leaders started suffering death and life sentences by the International Crimes Tribunal for crimes against humanity in 1971.
BNP-led 18-Party alliance has also relentlessly organised strikes and blockades demanding installation of a ‘non-party’ caretaker government.
Political violence has intensified after the EC announced it will hold the parliament polls on Jan 5.
At least 21 persons, including a BGB trooper, were killed last week.
Minister Quader said, “Transport sector has been the target of the protestors. (I) have seen many movements since 1966. But I have never seen such systematic attack on public property.”
Rail tracks were uprooted and trains set on fire during the first round of the Opposition-sponsored blockade.
Railways Minister Md Mujibul Hoque had recently said the railways sector had suffered Tk 60 million in losses during the Opposition blockade last week.
The sector had also faced Tk 26 crore in loss due to sabotage during various political agitations, he told a press conference at Railway Bhaban in capital Dhaka on Thursday.
Quader said street protests may have brought down governments in many parts of the world , but even in those countries, there has not been such a high incidence of ‘systematic sabotage’ as during recent Opposition agitprop in Bangladesh.
“We saw Arab Spring, but agitators there did not attack public property with such abandon.”
“Agitations are also going on in Thailand, but they protest on the streets rather than destroy public property.”
“I saw the agitation against Ferdinand Marcos (late dictator) in Philippines. People took to streets. People were not burnt to death anywhere there.”
“The brutal strategy of cruel politics holds hostage people as if political interests are more important than human lives,” Quader said
Source: bdnews24