Security of travellers bound for their ancestral homes during this Eid-ul Azha holidays should be of utmost concern for the government, the home ministry to be particular. So, the home minister, who has already been grappling with the ever-worsening law and order of the country since he took office following the February 12, 2026's parliamentary election, is now to face yet another challenge of ensuring the Eid travellers' security and safety. Meanwhile, the graph of crime in about every of its form from murder, violence against women and children, mob violence, to abduction and extortion, has registered a sharp rise. Amid these developments, the home minister Salahuddin Ahmed, who has also to look after the Ministry of Defence and other portfolios, is now perhaps, one of the most embattled of all the ministers of the current government. According to an estimate, he has to ensure security of some 15 million people who have started to move out of Dhaka for celebrating the Eid -ul Azha with their relatives in different parts of the country. But people do not only stream out of the capital city during the Eid time. According to an estimate, some 3.0 million people also enter the nearly vacated city. The movement of the existing city residents and the new entrants who use the deserted-looking city roads and its different neighbouroods also face security challenges and the overstretched law-enforcement agencies have also to look after that. Against this backdrop, the government is learnt to have announced a nationwide security and monitoring plan ahead of the Eidul Azha 2026. The focus, as could be gathered, is on ensuring safe travel of the homebound people, installing security measures at the cattle markets to prevent extortion and help safe transportation of some 10 million sacrificial animals. The home minister after a high-level interministerial meeting held at the Bangladesh Secretariat recently announced that a special monitoring cell has been activated at the police headquarters which would remain operational seven days before and seven days after the Eid. The emergency hotlines from the law-enforcement and other concerned agencies including the fire service, road transport, water transport, ect., would remain active during all these days.
So, it is believed the measures would be enough to make Eid holidaymakers' journey home and back safe. But similar arrangements are taken every year during both the major Muslim religious festivals. Even so, accidents occur and the number of fatalities during the Eid travels has been increasing by the day. Consider that during the last Eidul Fitr holidays from March 14 to March28 of this year, some 351 people died in road accidents, according to Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity (BJKS), a non-governmental organization concerned with road safety. During the last Eid-ul Azha holidays between June 03 and June 14 of 2025, road accidents claimed 312 lives. The secretary of BJKS, for instance, compared such numbers of fatality due to road accidents during the Eid-holidays with those of the casualties during the recent Iran war and concluded that (calculated over a span of 15 days) the magnitude of the Eid travel-related fatalities in Bangladesh was far higher than that of Iran war-related casualties. Such deaths on roads, especially during the Eids have been normalised, since such news no more shocks the public. According to an estimate, 26 people died every day during the last Eid-ul Azha holidays. But that sounds normal to us. So, can we expect that with all the monitoring and preventive measures in place, the Eid-travel-related casualty figures would be different this time? Even if the numbers (of accidents and attendant deaths and injuries) show at least a noticeably declining trend, we would call that an achievement. Let's see how it all turns out. For one has to keep in mind that the responsibilities of the law-enforcement agencies include combating crimes involving control of cattle markets, possible Eid-time highway robberies, toll collection by the hoodlums representing transport workers' association or political goons, overspeeding and the errant manouvres of overtaking of one speeding bus by another often around hazardous zones like blind curves that causes most accidents and so on. Also, to consider that the issues that factor into all these road accidents include overstressed drivers, too many vehicles including both slow-moving and fast-moving ones using the same lane, absence of facilities on the roads to meet passengers' emergencies, you name them and the list of problems will go on getting longer. The home ministry is supposed to prevent all such mishaps in one go during the narrow window of 14 days available starting seven days before today, Monday (May 25) when the vacation starts and for seven more days after the Eid leaves end. To be fair, that is a tall order.
The problem is, the government-in fact, every government that came before the incumbent one and, to all probabilities, the ones that are going to follow- is in the habit of thinking that tackling of Eid-time crimes, road mishaps and various other excesses is all that matters about the safety of the public on the move. But travellers' safety is a year-round concern and, as such, the Eid-related crimes and mishaps do not take place in isolation. In that case, the government will be required to dedicate a section of its law-enforcement machinery to enforce traffic discipline and combat highway crimes across the nation all the year round. Of course, introduction of modern technologies like AI-cameras will help the law-enforcers to detect and home in on the law-breakers faster. Technology is but an aid to human endeavour to tackle problems better. But machines are not going to decide if and when to resolve the issues they (machines) help detect. Decisions, as before, are left to the humans behind the machines. Be that as it may, the security issues that come to a head during the Eid festivals cannot be expected to be resolved within the window of a week or two of intense activities. On the contrary, the efforts should be on throughout the year. It is only the cumulative experience gathered over the years that can help the law enforcers to effectively tackle intensified travellers' security and safety issues during the dizzyingly hectic Eid holidays. The government should consider the mistakes committed in handling the law and order during the Eid vacation as lessons to avoid similar lapses in the future. This should be the attitude of the law-enforcement department to make future Eid travels securer and safer.
sfalim.ds@gmail.con
Making Eid travels safer
Syed Fattahul Alim | Published: May 24, 2026 20:52:34
Making Eid travels safer
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