Transport Strike Declared In 5 Districts Amid CUET Protests

The ‘Greater Chattogram Public Transport Owners and Workers Unity Council’ has called a 48-hour strike in five districts amid ongoing student protests over the deaths of two Chattogram University of Engineering and Technology students in an accident involving a bus. The strike will be effective from 6am on Sunday in the Chattogram, Cox’s Bazar, Bandarban, Rangamati, and Khagrachhari districts. The council’s Member Secretary Mohammad Musa ensured the matter.

He said that all kinds of public transport including buses, minibuses, coaches, tempos and autorickshaws as part of a four-point list of demands will be enlisted under the strike. 

The decision to strike was taken at the organisation’s temporary office in the port city on Saturday afternoon.

Their list of demands include action against those ‘creating anarchy on the Chattogram-Kaptai road’ and the release of transport workers detained in various locations.

Earlier on April 22 two CUET students died in a road accident between a bus and a motorcycle near the Zia Nagar Selina Quader Chowdhury College in Chattogram’s Rangunia Upazila.

The dead were identified as Santo Saha of the 20th batch and Toufiq Hossain of the 21st batch of the Department of Civil Engineering. Another student was seriously injured in the accident and is being treated at Chittagong Medical College Hospital.

Aggrieved by the deaths, students began holding a protest at the CUET gate on Monday. They set a Shah Amanat Paribahan Group bus on fire that night and vandalised another of their buses.

The CUET authorities and representatives from transport owners, transport workers, and students met with the Chattogram deputy commissioner on Tuesday. Assurances were given of Tk 500,000 in compensation for the families of the dead and Tk 300,000 for the student injured.

An investigation committee led by an additional district magistrate was formed to investigate the incident.

But students announced a 10-point list of demands and continued their protests. One of them included compensation of Tk 20 million each for the families of the dead.

Students blocked the road on Wednesday.

In the midst of protests and vandalism on Thursday, CUET announced an indefinite closure and ordered students to vacate residential halls. In response, the protesters blocked the vice chancellor and several senior teachers on the campus. They locked the doors to the departments as well.

In the face of student demands, CUET backtracked their decision on Friday, allowing students to remain in the dormitories.

The students blocked the road again on Saturday morning. Finally the ‘Greater Chattogram Public Transport Owners and Workers Unity Council’ convened an emergency meeting and called the strike amid the protests.