EDITORIAL
People hostage to a powerful syndicate
We are outraged by the way the transport workers' 48-hour countrywide strike was enforced. Not only were public transports prevented from operating, even vehicles of the emergency services such as ambulances weren't spared. Transport workers in many areas of the city physically harassed drivers of rickshaws, motorcycles and private cars—which are normally out of a strike's purview. In many cases, they smeared burnt engine oil on the faces of drivers and passengers; even women were targeted. And the police did nothing to restrain them.
It is condemnable that in one instance, a seven-day-old infant died in an ambulance because transport workers held it for hours in Moulvibazar. While hartal is a political right, coercing the people to obey it is not. And that is exactly what the workers did.
What is even more ridiculous is their reason for going for hartal. They want the recently passed Road Transport Act, which road safety campaigners say is not enough, to be toned down to such an extent that it would cease to be an effective deterrent. They don't want lethal road accidents caused by the negligence of a driver to be regarded as manslaughter. They also want to lower the minimum educational requirement for obtaining a driving license.
Such unreasonable demands must not be accepted. While their rights to protest should be respected, the fact that workers resorted to harassment to coerce people into getting off the roads must not be condoned. It is time the administration took deterrent actions so that people are not held hostage to, and blackmailed by, a syndicate that enjoys patronage of certain powerful quarters.
- Courtesy: The Daily Star /Oct 30, 2018
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