New Year revellers stay indoors

New Year celebrations in the city were rather different this year. Unlike previous years, a small number of people came out on the streets to welcome the New Year.

In the past, fireworks and crackers would break the silence of the night, and a huge number of people used to enjoy the first hours of the New Year, dancing and singing on the streets.

But this time around, most people remained indoors and the streets were almost empty after 11:00pm.

It was the police, BDR and army personnel who remained on the city roads throughout the night.

Besides army personnel, over 3000 police and BDR men and mounted police, along with dog squads, guarded 84 identified trouble spots to prevent any untoward incident. Special security measures were taken for the diplomatic zone. A police team led by the Deputy Commissioner (Protection) was deployed in the zone.

The city's Gulshan and Banani areas known as 'celebration points' were almost empty in the first hour. Few local people and foreigners were seen on the roads. They exchanged greetings with the law enforcers.

Home Minister Altaf Hossain Chodhury accompanied by the Inspector General of Police, (IGP) and some other high officials, was seen exchanging New Year's greetings with the law enforcers and journalists at the Gulshan-2 crossing at midnight.

Altaf visited different city areas from 11:00pm till small hours of yesterday to supervise the activities of the law enforcers. He asked the law enforcers to discharge their duties properly.

Students of Dhaka University gathered at the TSC and Shahbagh crossing before zero hour. They danced, sang and exploded a few crackers but the celebrations looked rather insipid. Outsiders could not enter the campus as the law enforcers had sealed off all the entrances at 8:00pm.Only students and teachers were allowed to enter the campus.

Celebrations in other places in the city followed a more or less similar pattern. Police, BDR and army personnel checked the vehicles. They even went for body search.

In many places, there were indoors and locality-based parties where people welcomed the New Year dancing, singing and having feasts.

The hotels, however, did brisk business. A large number of men and women joined the New Year's parties in hotels.

Many city dwellers said there was no lack of enthusiasm among them but they could not celebrate the New Year according to their plans owing to the tight security measures adopted by the law enforcers. "This time people did not come out fearing harassment or even arrest," said a man at the Gulshan-2 crossing.

Security was beefed up in the city and across the country on the 31st night because of two past incidents weighing heavily in the law enforcers' calculations. First, the memory of the untoward incident on the Dhaka University campus, where a woman was harassed by revellers in the first hour of the year 2000, is still fresh. Second, the bomb explosions in cinema halls in Mymensingh and Satkhira laid bare some glaring holes in the overall security system.