STUDENTS of different colleges in Dhaka took to streets again protesting the death of a fellow student in an accident in the capital. Ali Hossain, a class ten student of Government Science High School, died after being hit by a microbus in Dhaka’s Tejgaon Industrial area on September 11. Students of different schools and colleges later joined the procession and protested against the government’s continued failure in ensuring road safety in Bangladesh. In 2018, the roads and highways ministry record said a total 25,526 people got killed while 19,763 suffered injuries in road accidents over the past decade. It is in this context, students across the country have been taking to the streets demanding punishment for those responsible for the chaos in the sector. Youths affiliated with the Bangladesh Chhatra League too should have supported the cause, raised their voice to make their leaders accountable for the irregularities plaguing the transport sector. Instead of supporting a public cause, a group of BCL members launched targeted attacks on protesting students.

Students in Bangladesh have been mobilising for road safety for nearly two decades now. In the face of student protest, the government enacted a new law in 2018, but it has only been partially implemented. Experts and road safety campaigners have asked the government to address at least three particular concerns to bring some order in the sector and that included the crisis of the skilled driver, the issue of monthly wage structure for transport workers and the compensation for the victims of road accidents. The latest data of the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority indicates that at least one million registered vehicles are being operated by drivers without licence. Instead of improving its training capacity, the authorities concerned have repeatedly relaxed the licensing rule to accommodate unskilled drivers. The decision to introduce a monthly wage system for transport workers abandoning the contractual system has been made on a number of occasions but has never been implemented. Under the current law, a road accident victim can ‘apply for compensation’ from a ‘Financial Aid Fund’ and the fund is mobilised in a way that does not impose any specific compensation liability on the vehicle owner. Such legal ambiguity, as argued by victims’ families, protects the negligent owners. More importantly, the political influence that the transport owners and workers federation has on the government has been an impediment to the enforcement of the recently enacted law.

IT IS morally reprehensible that the government has failed to contain road fatality that the students had to take to the streets again for safe roads in Bangladesh. The government must act considering its constitutional obligation to protect the lives of its citizens; it must act with the interest of public safety at heart. In doing so, it must set legal precedent of giving exemplary punishment to all responsible — from the reckless drivers to the government officers issuing fitness certificates to unfit vehicles.