Road accident and safety

Road accidents are very common in our country, a huge number of people died in road accidents every year and the ratio of injury per accident is also very high.

Not a single day we have passed when we do not read a report of road accidents. Almost everyone was affected by such accidents, because a relative or friend is someway connected to such accidents.

On an average, per day road accidents kill 10-15 people, which make the streets and highways more vulnerable in our country.

At about 120 people were killed in road accident this month around the country.

Most of the road crashes occurred due to bus driver’s ignorance of traffic law, unskilled driving, defective roads and careless driving.

Experts said poorly trained drivers are mainly to blame for the high number of road deaths and injuries.

Many road accident victims said the drivers always go unpunished using the loopholes of the law. So thy demanded an effective law to punish the killer drivers to prevent road accidents.

Families United Against Road Accident (FUARA), an organization formed mostly by the families of the victims, demanded implementing motor vehicle laws properly, declaring the killing in road accidents as non-bailable offence, canceling fake driving licenses, removing all unfit vehicles from roads, ensuring punishment to the killer drivers, creating massive awareness, improving the skills of drivers and incorporating the road safety issue in school curriculum.

They blaming Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) officials for giving licenses to unfit vehicles and drive against such vehicles must be launched to reduce road accidents.

They also urged the people from all walks of life to put in concerted efforts to check road accidents.

Experts said awareness on preventing road accidents among drivers, vehicle owners, law enforcement agencies and pedestrians must also be raised.

A Bangladesh Roads Transport Authority (BRTA) official said everyday BRTA’s two offices in the capital alone get 400 new driving applications, but the officials can process only 250 licenses because of limited resources and testing infrastructure.

While contacted Prof. Dr. Hasib Mohammed Ahsan, Director of Accident Research Institute (ACR), said in the city most of the accident occurred for not obeying the traffic rules. On the other hand in highway most of the accident ensued because of overtaking, reckless driving and over speed.

He mentioned that in the city we have not enough footpaths for the pedestrian to walk so that they walk in the road and fell victim of road accident.

According to statistics 64% pedestrian were killed in road accident, he added.

So preventing road accident in the city, driver’s need to follow the traffic rules as well as the pedestrian need to be careful when they are walking in the road, he added.

The ACR director also said to prevent accident in the highway driver need to be more careful about their speed and while they are overtaking another car in the highway.

While asked for a driving license drivers need to face a five minute test drive to prove his/her driving ability. Is it correct?

He answered that a huge number of driver are untested in our country so we can say this is comparatively good then untested.

Read More

Criminal activities by cops on rise in the city

Extortion and other criminal activities by a section of policemen have increased in the capital city due to lack of stringent measures of the authorities concerned in this regard.

Many policemen have long been engaged in doing various criminal activities including extortion and bribery as no stern action is taken against them, according to court records.

There are very few instances of awarding exemplary punishment to the policemen involved in criminal activities under the existing law, the court records say.

A number of police officials including officer-in-charges of different police stations have been sued on charge of extortion, bribery and other criminal activities in the last six months.

But all the cases have been filed with Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Court as the police stations concerned declined to register them and even they did not take any steps to probe the allegations.

On April 5, a case was filed against officer-in-charge (OC) of Rampura Police Station along with its two sub-inspectors (SI) with a Dhaka court on charge of extortion.

On May 25, a Dhaka court issued warrant for arrest of two policemen of Mirpur Police Station on charge of extorting Tk 10,000 and snatching a mobile phone from a resident of Mirpur on March 20.

A case was filed against the two policemen with the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court of Dhaka On March 27.

On May 30, a housewife filed a case with Dhaka court against six people including officer-in-charge of Motijheel Police Station and two of his colleagues for issuing threat to kill her husband in crossfire.

On June 27, a fraudulent and embezzlement case was filed against two policemen including Sutrapur office-in-charge Md Nazrul Islam.

Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) earlier filed a case against a sub-inspector (SI) of Mirpur Police Station on charge of taking bribe from the complainant of a case.

A section of policemen in the name of security search has long been engaged in collecting illegal toll from people in different areas of the capital city.

Some SIs with the help of constables frisk people — drivers and passengers of rickshaws, taxi-cabs and CNG-run auto-rickshaws — from early morning until midnight.

In most cases, they stop these vehicles on various pleas, search them and pick up the passengers with a threat to take them into custody.

Over 50,000 policemen faced departmental action for neglect of duty and involvement in criminal activities in the last few years, police headquarter sources said.

But the number of policemen sacked for their wrongdoings is very few, the sources said.

Police Internal Oversight (PIO), an intelligence wing of the police formed to oversee the activities of the cops, remain almost inactive as the government has recently denied giving approval to the proposed organogram of the wing.

The PIO started working with 286 policemen. Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) was given charge of the PFI in the proposed PFI organogram. As per the proposed organogram, SPs were given charge of the districts.

The initiative to form an intelligence body to oversee the activities of policemen was first taken in 1989.

“None would be spared from top to bottom in the police department if found indulging in corruption, Inspector General of Police (IGP) Hassan Mahmood Khandker said."

"We took some measures to stop corruption by policemen through motivation as well as punishment to those involved in criminal activities," the police chief said.

"We first tried to motivate the policemen not to involve themselves in corruption," the IGP said adding, "The corrupt policemen who could not correct themselves would face exemplary punishment".

Former IGP Mohammad Hadis Uddin stressed the need for appointing an ombudsman in the police department to investigate crimes committed by the policemen.

He also said, “there is a law in the police department has its but we need to properly apply those laws to stop crimes by cops.”

“If you look at the police department statistics, every year police department took action against around 5,000 cops,” he added.

The Ex IGP also said "We should first make sure that there is accountability and transparency in the police department by giving punishment to the cops involved in crimes."

Read More