Thousands leaving capital to celebrate Eid at home

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A mad rush of passengers at the city's Sadarghat Launch Terminal Wednesday to return home to celebrate the Eid-ul-Azha with their near and dear ones. — FE photo

Fazlur Rahman
Thousands of city-dwellers have started leaving the capital to celebrate Saturday's Eid-ul-Azha, with their near and dear ones.
With only three days left for the festival, people with or without seat-ensuring tickets are gathering at the city's railway stations, bus and launch terminals to join relatives in their village homes.
The capital will experience exodus on Thursday, the last working day before three-day Eid vacation starting from Friday, although a number of passengers have already left amid clamour for seats of trains, buses and launches.
Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) said it has started special Eid service from Wednesday, which would continue for the next three days, to ply on different inter-district routes in addition to the regular services considering the demands of the homebound city-dwellers.
Officials at the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority said special ferry services have also been introduced on various routes on the occasion of the festival.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Railway (BR) has said seven special trains, including four to and from the capital, would run from Wednesday for the country's different destinations much to the relief of home-bound passengers.
The routes for the special trains are: Dhaka-Mymensingh, Dhaka-Dewanganj, Chittagong-Chandpur Special-1 and Chittagong-Chandpur Special-2, Chittagong-Comilla, Shantahar-Joydebpur Special-1 and Joydevpur-Shantahar Special-2.
The news came as a relief to the city-dwellers who, despite making several attempts, failed to obtain tickets during advance ticket sales by the BR from November 18 to 22.
"I spent 12 hours in a queue at Kamalapur Railway Station for getting tickets when the advance tickets were sold. But I could not manage any," said Mamunur Rashid, who would join his family in Jamalpur to celebrate Eid.
"Now I will be able to go home after the authorities announced special train services," he told the FE.
The tickets for special trains would not be sold in advance, rather would be available at the station before any schedule departure, officials said.
The authorities are also selling tickets for standing passengers, which is 10 per cent of the total seats of a train, station manager M A Zinnah said adding that extra two to four compartments have been added to carry more passengers.
These special trains would run before and after Eid. However, no special train will run on the Eid day, officials said, adding the BR would run those trains in addition to the regular inter-city, mail and express services.
The Dhaka-Mymensingh special train will leave Kamalapur station at 9:10am and the Dhaka-Dewanganj special train at 8:40am.
The Joydevpur-Shantahar Special-1 train will leave Joydevpur at 4:45pm and the Shantahar-Joydevpur Special-2 train will start from Shantahar at 8:00am.
The Dhaka-Dewanganj special train will run until December 12 except Eid day, railway sources said.
Meanwhile, passengers have alleged that bus fare of different routes has increased by Tk 50 to Tk 150. In some routes, the fare has just doubled.
But the bus operators said they are not charging more than the rates fixed by the government, with terminal authorities of Saidabad, Gabtoli and Mohakhali are asking passengers through loudspeaker not to buy tickets from outside the counters.
Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), police and intelligence personnel have been deployed at the railway stations and bus and launch terminals in the city to keep the black-marketers at bay and ease the situation for the home-goers.