Day 5 of ‘strict lockdown’: movement of people, vehicles on the rise in Dhaka
As the "strict lockdown" rolled into the fifth day, public movement and vehicles increased on most streets in Dhaka on the first day of the week.
A long tailback was seen on Airport Road -- from Banani to Uttara -- around 10:00am, witnesses said.
Hundreds of private cars, covered-vans, CNG-run auto-rickshaws and motorbikes were moving slowly in front of Radisson Blu Dhaka on Airport Road, they said.
A senior official of Dhaka Metropolitan Police's Uttara Traffic Division said that vehicular movement increased because of office-goers today.
Although government and private offices have been asked to close during the "strict lockdown", factories and emergency services, like banks, are operating.
On some roads in Dhaka city, including Mirpur Road and Kakrail, all sorts of vehicles except public transport were seen on the move. At some points, vehicles stalled for a while because of heavy traffic while in other places, traffic police were seen manually controlling vehicular movement.
Meanwhile, the number of rickshaws was more today than last four days.
On the fifth day of the weeklong restrictions, police are checking for movement passes enthusiastically like the first few days.
However, at some checkpoints, police were not checking vehicles.
At Asad Gate check post on Mirpur Road, policemen sat idly at a nearby building around 10:15am, our staff correspondent reports. Apart from the office-goers, many were out for emergency work in the area, the correspondent said.
Md Jalal from Mohammadpur, who was waiting in a queue in front of Janata Bank there, said he came to pay utility bills.
Some others said they were going to kitchen market for groceries.
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