Stuck, helpless in delinked city

Shamsul Alam came from Cox's Bazar on Friday and got admitted to the National Institute of Diseases of the Chest and Hospital in Mirpur with lung disease.
Nothing else could have made him happier than being released from hospital. But stepping out of NIDCH yesterday morning, the 55-year-old landed himself in real trouble.
“I am now faced with dual problems,” he told your correspondents at Kamalapur railway station around 3:00pm. “I can neither stay nor leave. I have spent almost all my money on treatment.”
Exhausted after running from one bus terminal to another, he came to the station in the vain hope of finding a train.
Amanullah, a relative who came with Alam, said, "We do not have any relative in Dhaka. We do not have money to stay at a hotel."
Alam added, “Even if we anyhow mange a hotel, police may arrest us.”
Some 47 staff of a private company were supposed to attend the wedding party of a colleague in Rajshahi yesterday.
“We had planned a grand celebration but everything got ruined due to nasty politics. I just returned all the advance tickets,” said one of them, Nasir Hossain, at Kamalapur station.
There were hundreds of thousands others in the capital and elsewhere feeling trapped and helpless, thanks to the country's politicians.
While the opposition called for a march to Dhaka, the ruling party was out to foil the programme.
Members of the Awami League, its associated bodies and law enforcement agencies decided not to let any public transport enter the city. They even stopped private cars, auto-rickshaws and manually-driven rickshaws.
"I had an appointment at the hospital for treatment of my eyes two days back. But I could not make it because no one was being allowed into the city,” said sexagenarian Hajera Begum, a resident of Sonargaon in Narayanganj.
She was shuffling through Kanchpur bridge holding her son around 12:30pm yesterday. She was trying to go to Madina Eye Hospital.
“Today I have to walk around 2 km and changed my vehicle four times to reach the hospital." Panting, the elderly woman said every step was causing her discomfort in her eyes.
In Ashulia and Abdullahpur, men, women, children and elderly persons were seen walking in their hundreds in long processions throughout the day.
Hajeerah Khatun, who along with her daughter and granddaughter was traveling to Jamaibazar in Ashulia, also had to leave the bus at Ashulia bazaar and walk along the highway.    
“We may have to walk all the way to our destination,” she fumed.
Gabtoli bus terminal, one of the busiest in Dhaka, was devoid of any activity yesterday.
“People can at least make an effort to maintain their daily lives during hartal and blockades if they have the courage to step out of the house. Now we are not even being allowed to do that,” said Rana Ahmed.
A shopkeeper of Islampur, Rana was not allowed to cross over to the other side of Babubazar bridge yesterday. But he had to go to a courier outlet where a buyer had sent him money.
In Chittagong, Dhaka-bound passengers were stranded yesterday as road and rail communications between Chittagong and the capital remained cut off yesterday.
Many people wandered from one counter to another looking for bus tickets while people returned from the railway station empty handed as train operations had also been suspended.
Standing hopelessly outside a bus counter at Station Road, Mamunur Rashid, a businessman, said he had gone to every bus counter in the city, but he could not manage a ticket to go to his home in Gazipur.