Bus services in Khulna to remain suspended Oct 21, 22

Staff Reporter :
Ahead of the BNP rally in Khulna on Saturday, the bus owners and transport associations have decided to cease to ply their inter-district bus services for October 21 and 22.
The decision has created irks among the BNP leaders and activists as they alleged that the government has been undertaking such steps in a bid to foil their grand rally by preventing people from joining there.
Protesting the government’s misrule, failure to control the skyrocketing price hike of daily essentials, power failures, and ‘restoring’ democracy by toppling the government, BNP has been holding a series of grand rallies in the divisional cities.
The party has already held two such grand rallies in Chattogram followed by Mymensingh. Now their third rally will be held in Khulna on October 22.
Ahead of the last rally in Mymensingh, the district bus owners kept their vehicles out of the streets which BNP alleged that it was a strategy of the government to prevent the participation of BNP workers to the rally.
At that time BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir alleged that the government had created a ‘hartal’ and ‘curfiew’ like situation forcing the transport owners to suspend the vehicles.
After the Mymensingh rally, BNP claimed that their grand rally was ‘successful’ while the ruling party Awami League claimed that BNP could not draw many people.
Now ahead of the third grand rally in Khulna, the transport owners announced the suspension of the bus services. Khulna Bus-Minibus Owners Samity and Khulna Motor Sramik Union jointly took the decision after a meeting on Wednesday.
“The Nosimon, Korimon, Mahendra and Easybike are plying on the highways defying the High Court order. If the administration does not take action against these vehicles, the bus owners will keep all their vehicles out of the streets for October 21 and 22,” the meeting sources said.
General Secretary of Khulna Motor Sramik Union Jakir Hossain said, “Decision has been taken to suspend plying of the buses on October 21-22 following a meeting. The owners have taken the decision. We have given our consent.”
BNP has termed such a decision as a ‘conspiracy’ to foil their rally, but they said that nothing can prevent their leaders and workers from making the rally successful.
Convener of the media committee to implement the rally Ehteshamul Haque Shaon said, “It is a conspiracy to foil our public rally. No conspiracy can thwart the rally.”
General Secretary of District BNP Monirul Islam Hasan Bappi said, “The bus services have been suspended in a planned way to prevent the participation of the leaders and workers from nine districts. We apprehended it earlier.”
He also said that they had called the leaders and workers to arrive much earlier than the scheduled date of the rally, and to stay in the residential hotels and relatives houses in Khulna city.
Convener Khulna district BNP Ejaz Khan said, “We are expecting tens of thousands of people including party workers to attend the rally. We will show the Awami League ‘red card’ in the rally.”
In reply to the query of the suspension of bus services, District Awami League General Secretary Advocate Sujit Adhikari said, “I don’t know about the suspension.”
BNP has the schedule to hold the rally on Sonali Bank Square of Khulna City as part of their previously announced programme. They have scheduled to hold a total of 10 rallies in ten divisional cities and the final rally will be held in the capital on December 10.
Meanwhile, BNP will hold countrywide protest rallies, except in Khulna, on Thursday to protest against the police attacks on party leaders and workers, as well as arrest of party men in ‘false’ cases.