Commuters suffer on Dhaka-Ctg highway

The queue of traffic on Dhaka-Chittagong highway near Mirsarai of Chittagong stretched for 50km after rampaging Jamaat-Shibir men blocked the highway yesterday. Photo: Focus Bangla

Commuters yesterday suffered long tailbacks of traffic on Dhaka-Chittagong route as a large number of vehicles took to the highway after Thursday's countrywide shutdown.
Hundreds of busses and goods-laden vehicles were seen stuck in an 85-kilometre-long tailback stretching from Lalpole in Feni to Sitakunda in Chittagong.
The agony of passengers multiplied after some 10 to 12 vehicles went out of order and a wood-laden truck overturned at Sultana Mandir in Sitakunda.
Vehicles were seen moving at snail's pace on both directions.
Boni Adam, a truck helper, said they started for Chittagong from the capital around 10:00 pm on Thursday and reached Feni at 3:30 am yesterday.
"But it took nearly five hours to reach Sitakunda upazila from Feni, which was a one-hour journey on regular days," he added.
Nurun Nahar, an advocate, who started for Sitakunda from Chittagong city, reached her home nearly four-and-a-half hours late than usual time.
According to the highway police, the highway saw huge presence of traffic from 2:30 am and the gridlock finally eased in the afternoon.
Sohel Imtiaz, officer-in-charge of Sitakunda Highway Police, said they removed broken down vehicles from the highway by 1:30 pm.
He also blamed some truckers for worsening the traffic situation with their vehicles haphazardly kept on the highway.
Passengers, who left for the port city in the morning, found their return trip to the capital difficult within the speculated time.