Editorial
Blasé attitude to human lives
Recklessly installed overhead billboards spell deaths
We are dumbfounded at the observation made by a supposedly responsible office bearer of Outdoor Advertisement Owners' Association about the lethality caused to pedestrians by fledgling rooftop billboards. He is quoted in the report as saying, "When a lot of people are getting killed in various accidents ... a few deaths due to billboard collapse are not something exceptional." It amounts to saying, so what if some people die from collapsing billboards! Even though human lives have become cheap these days, his statement is patently outrageous because of the odious way he made light of a palpable danger to human life. Such men are a shame to the humankind. Should he not be taken to task for his remarks.
Rods, bars, poles, pieces of tin and other metals fell like missiles hitting stationary people or passersby, especially during gales or storm. Such accidents took lives and injured many. The Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) in a belated spurt of wisdom replacing its get-revenue-made-easy style woke up to launch a demolition drive. Owners of billboard filing writs with the High Court, this is now stayed -- since 2006. But for all we know, a ban was imposed in 2005 on rooftop billboards. And owners of the buildings having billboards installed on them have also been warned. It is important that the adjudication process is completed soon with the DCC taking the initiative to expedite it.
The question remains, however, why in the first place the DCC and, for that matter, the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (RAJUK) allowed such risky hoardings to be installed on rooftops, know as they do how unpredictable our weather conditions are. Leave aside weather, even from the standpoint of common sense, why must loosely installed structure be allowed to overhang the traffic beeline below. In major cities of the world, large billboards and hoardings are fixed to the ground while lighter ones are affixed with the scaffolding of the building, never atop it like a sword opened from the scabbard.
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