Editorial
Death of a student
Resort to violence cannot solve road accidents
We deeply condole the death of Polytechnic Institute student Mohammad Ashiqul Alam in a road accident at Tejgaon Industrial area on Friday. The student went under the wheels of the passenger bus he was traveling in while he was getting down from it. It is tragic indeed the way the young life was cut short because of the veritable carelessness of the bus driver. The incident sent a shock wave among the fellow students on the campus who staged a violent demonstration on the road demanding punishment of the driver.
It is however unfortunate that the clashes between the students and law enforcers spilled over entering the second day on Saturday, which caused a terrible traffic jam across the city during busy hours.
This latest accident involving a passenger bus on the road once again brings to the fore the lack of fitness of the vehicles and incompetence and could-care-less-attitude to public life. Ramshackle passenger buses speeding wildly from one end of the city to another and maddeningly overtaking one another is but a common sight in the metropolis. These drivers lack training on basic traffic rules and are known to operate with fake driving license. In a frantic bid to let in passengers they often park their vehicles on the middle of the road, and more often than not, bus helpers drop passengers out from a virtually running vehicle, thereby putting their lives in double jeopardy.
While we want the culprit to get the punishment he deserves, we at the same time consider the violent behavior that was demonstrated following the accident on Friday highly reprehensible. We believe the solemnity of the sad incident was lost in the outburst of people who took law in their own hands. They had no business damaging vehicles of innocent people on the road and causing traffic in the city to come to a standstill.
The sooner everyone in the country comes to realise the imperative of abiding by the laws of the land, the better it will be to maintain civic peace. There is no denying that crushing of the student was an abhorrent thing that needs to be condemned, it however remains to be said that a scourge like road accidents cannot be solved through resorting to violence.
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