Fair affected too

Like rest of the country, the Amar Ekushey Granthamela also wore an almost desolate look yesterday.

Only a handful of booklovers were seen walking around the premises of the Bangla Academy and Suhrawardy Udyan in the afternoon.

The reason for such a small crowd was the unprecedented security blanket the capital was wrapped in ahead of the verdict in a corruption case against the BNP chairperson.

The situation remained the same after the verdict.

With no rush of visitors, many of the publishers were seen sitting idle. They said not many people visited the fair as they feared any untoward incident might take place centring the verdict.

“Usually, we sell books worth Tk 50,000 by evening on an average. But today [yesterday] we made only Tk 25 so far,” said Muhammad Shahin of “Anupam Prokashoni”.

Nasir Ahmed Selim of “Kakoli Prokashoni” and Mohammad Yunus of “Kothaprokash” said hardly a few people visited their stalls.

However, as the evening rolled in, people who lived nearby or were in the vicinity started dropping by.

Tofail Ahmed came to Dhaka University with his daughter for her admission. “Since we are here, we decided to visit the fair,” said the Uttara resident.

Most of the visitors were from nearby educational institutions, especially DU.

“Since there's no rush, my friends and I have the entire fair to us,” said a smiling Debasis Sikhder, a master's student at DU.

Yesterday, 64 books arrived at the fair.

Today, there will be a “Shishu Prahar” from 11:00am to 1:00pm, dedicated to children.