Transport strike begins on Dhaka-Sylhet route

A strike by transport workers to protest the lynching of a driver by passengers has paralysed transport services in Sylhet.
Bus services between the eastern city and Dhaka have been stopped. But buses from Sylhet are running on other routes.
Sylhet Road Transport Workers’ Union President Selim Ahmed Falik said that the strike, which started from 6am on Wednesday, will end at 6pm.
No untoward incident was reported so far from anywhere in the district, said Sylhet’s Superintendent of Police Nure Alam Mia.
Buses are plying normally on internal routes.
Transport workers in Habiganj too have joined the protests and no buses left from the district for Dhaka or Sylhet.
“Habiganj Motor Owners Group has extended their support for the strike called by Sylhet Road Transport Workers by suspending bus services from 6am to 6pm on Wednesday,” General Secretary Shangkha Shuvro Rai said.
Habiganj Sadar Police Station’s OC Nazim Uddin told that like in Sylhet, buses were plying on internal routes and there had been no report of any untoward incident.
However, the strike has become a source of discomfort for passengers. Dhaka University student Foysol Alam came to know about the strike only when he went to the city’s bus terminal. By then, all train tickets were also booked.
“I did not know about the strike. Now I am worried about how to go back.”
Forty-year-old Babul Chandra Dey Shibu, driver of a bus operated by Shyamoli Paribahan, was beaten up by passengers on Monday night, which left him unconscious.
A delay in starting the Sylhet-bound bus at the capital’s Sayedabad upset the passengers on board and led to his lynching by them.
Shibu was taken to the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, where the doctors declared him dead.
Police have arrested four passengers of the bus for the lynching.
Shibu’s wife Rima Dey named them – Rajon Miya, 32, Rezaul Karim, 33, Sohel Ahmed, 30, and Kamrul Islam Shakil, 26 – in the case over the lynching she filed on Tuesday.
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