Deaths on rail tracks

Deaths due to unnatural causes hardly evoke any reaction these days. For such deaths are too many in number to mourn. People are being killed in rivalries, political or otherwise, randomly. Such deaths have unfortunately become commonplace. Road accidents are daily events that claim at least a dozen lives countrywide.  The sinking of passenger vessels also takes the lives of a considerable number of people every year. Furthermore, train accidents claim lives, not infrequently. But more people get killed at rail crossings than in train accidents as such.

Some people take their own lives by coming under the wheels of trains. Some others risk their lives and build makeshift markets or shanties along the rails. There are nearly100 such makeshift markets and slums in Dhaka city alone. Drives are launched by the Bangladesh Railways from time to time to evict such markets and slums. But those are found to spring up again after a few days. Deaths on tracks around such temporary establishments do not deter a section of people from building makeshift shops.

Last Thursday's accident along rails at Karwan Bazaar that claimed four lives and injured critically half a dozen people has brought to the fore again the dangers of living too close to the railway tracks. The media has been running reports on the risk of setting up markets and slums along the rails but to no avail. The Bangladesh Railway (BR) last Friday demolished unauthorised structures near the rails at Karwan Bazaar. Similar drives, according to the BR authorities, will continue also at other places of the city. But most people tend to believe that the drive would be discontinued sooner rather than later and the shops and shanties would again emerge with the help of local goons, a section of unscrupulous railway officials and police.

In fact, an appalling situation now prevails in most parts of Dhaka city, particularly around vacant land or space owned by the government or state agencies. Some people flex their political muscle to put up temporary structures there and ensure a regular flow of fund for them. Even roads and pavements are not spared. The most disturbing aspect of the wholesale grabbing of government-owned spaces is that the agencies concerned are found not to be interested in evicting the encroachers for unexplained reasons. It could be that they do not want to get into conflict with the grabbers having political links.

The situation is not anyway different in the case of makeshift markets built along the rails running through the Dhaka city. The traders who operate at these markets are required to make regular payments to some people who prefer to remain behind the scene. Earning a few extra bucks against unauthorised use of government land or facilities is not that difficult in a city where thousands are out to make a living by engaging in small trading in the informal sector. Had the BR been serious enough, it would not have been a difficult task for it to keep its tracks within the city free from any type of encroachment. But such seriousness on the part of the BR authorities is conspicuous by its absence. And none knows when the authorities concerned will wake up and do the needful to protect human lives and to free state-owned lands from the clutches of the politically powerful vested quarters. Until that happens, the people will be forced to bear such tragedies and misfortune.