Fruit traders’ protest blocks Dhaka-Barishal highway

NN Online:

Fruit traders have blocked the Barishal-Dhaka highway in a protest demanding the allocation of new stalls constructed by the Barishal City Corporation (BCC) without a lottery system.

The vendors put barricades in the Hatem Ali Choumatha area on the highway around 11am on Tuesday, disrupting the vehicular movement and causing suffering of commuters.

The traders said they had been doing business for a long time taking a piece of land on lease from Zilla Parishad.

But, the BCC got the ownership of the land after demarcating its boundary when Barishal municipality upgraded to a city corporation.

Former BCC mayor Sadik Abdullah tried to build stalls on the land earlier but was forced to stop the construction work in the face of the vendors’ protest, said one of the protesters Shahid.

But now the BCC officials erected some 30 to 35 stalls on the land and want to allot through lottery, he alleged.

He warned that they would continue the movement until their demands are met.