Jamalpur-Dhaka bus strike strands hundreds of passengers
Photo: Agamir Somoy
A bus shutdown on the Jamalpur-Dhaka route plunged travelers into severe distress on Thursday morning. Passengers flocked to the Jamalpur Inter-District Bus Terminal only to turn back empty-handed, while others scrambled to find alternative vehicles.
Jamalpur Bus-Minibus Labor Union launched a strike on Wednesday night. The abrupt suspension of transport services hit Dhaka-bound patients, students, and job holders the hardest.
Transport workers initiated the strike to demand guaranteed safety for drivers and workers on the highway, and to push for action against those who attacked workers and vandalized two buses in the Nandina Bazar area.
Since the morning, operators did not run a single bus on the Jamalpur-Dhaka route, and the transport halt also paralyzed several other long-distance routes.
Nipa Akter, a resident of the Pathalia Chhatar Mor area in Jamalpur municipality, arrived at the terminal in the morning to catch a ride to Keraniganj in Dhaka. Discovering the suspension of bus services left her stranded and in deep distress.
She said, “I did not know the buses were suspended. They should have informed the passengers beforehand that the buses would remain shut. Then we would not have had to fall into this misery.”
Another Dhaka-bound commuter, Md Rafiqul Islam, shared his frustration, “I left home early in the morning to travel to Dhaka for some urgent work. After coming to the terminal, I found out that buses would not run. Now I do not understand how I will go. I did not get any prior announcement. If they had told us beforehand, I would have made alternative arrangements.”
Anxious passengers stranded at the terminal pointed out that while transport owners and workers might have their internal disputes, citizens are the ones paying the price. Patients, students, and job holders continue to bear the brunt of the crisis.
Harunur Rashid, the joint convenor of the Jamalpur Bus-Minibus Labor Union, said someone attacked two Rajib Paribahan buses bound for Jamalpur and Dhaka on Wednesday. They beat the drivers and assistants and robbed them of their money. Once the news spread among transport workers, they decided to strike.
Rashid added that bus operations will remain suspended until authorities fully guarantee the safety of drivers and workers. He also demanded legal action against the perpetrators of the bus vandalism and worker assaults.
On Monday, when a Dhaka-bound Rajib Paribahan bus collided with an auto-rickshaw traveling in the opposite direction in Jamalpur. The crash crushed the auto-rickshaw under the bus, killing four people on the spot.
In response to the accident, local students and residents of Nandina organized a human chain and protest on Wednesday, demanding that the government cancel Rajib Paribahan’s route permit and ban its operations entirely.
During the demonstration, protestors stopped two of the company’s buses, forced the passengers to get off, and then drove the vehicles to the Nandina East Bazar playground area, where they vandalized them.
