Editorial
A blocked Dhaka-Aricha highway
Regular highway patrols could avert such incident
The Dhaka-Aricha highway was forcibly closed off to traffic for two hours by the agitated workers of a garments factory in Savar on Friday. It happened because one of the workers had been run over by a speeding bus moments earlier. In the course of the uproar, no fewer than fifteen vehicles were damaged by the workers and the situation could only be brought under control after police, RAB and soldiers turned up on the scene. The menacing reality is that such incidents have regularly been taking place in the country. Buses and trucks have hit and left students, workers and others dead and have quickly made their exit from the spot. The consequences, for others using the same road, have been horrendous. Their vehicles have either come under frenzied attack or they have been left stranded on the road for hours because it has been occupied by the angry protesters.
And that is where quite a few questions arise about the psychology which suddenly transforms a body of otherwise peaceful men and women into a ferocious mob intent on taking the law in their own hands. At the same time, how do the police explain the quick manner in which a speeding vehicle knocking down and killing an individual manages to flee the scene? Or, why no law enforcers take charge of the street before the agitated ones do? Even if the bus flees, why cannot policemen in the area pass on information about the fugitive vehicle to their colleagues up ahead as a way of halting it and taking the driver into custody? Or why indeed the police personnel are not seen trying promptly and earnestly to quell public commotion on the spot?
About a couple of years ago, a highway police system was inaugurated with much fanfare. It was given out that the highway police would check all violations of the rules of the road. Indeed, for sometime it was observed that highway police patrols using modern vehicles travelled up and down the roads. Today, it does not appear that the system has yielded any benefit. Such a condition calls for a clear statement on the part of the police authorities. Why the highway patrol police have not made any impact is a question calling for a swift, credible response.
There comes too a question of discipline, especially where reacting to incidents is concerned. Management at organisations such as garment units will be doing themselves and the general public a favour if they inculcate in their workers a sense of discipline and self-control. Grieving over the death of a colleague is perfectly natural. To go on a rampage over the death and damage public and private property is not. Some mechanism should be evolved to prevent backlash to accident in such a vulnerable area as Dhaka-Aricha highway. Our sympathies go out to the family of the dead worker.
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