Freelance journalist among 13 killed in road crashes

At least 13 people were killed and many others injured in separate road accidents in the capital, and Tangail, Munshiganj, Jhenidah and Pirojpur districts on Friday. In Dhaka, a freelance journalist and a transport worker were killed in separate accidents in Rampura and Badda areas. The dead are Sabiha Siddique, 32, a freelance journalist and daughter of ABM Siddique, a resident of Sekhertek in the city’s Adabar area, and Shah Ali, 25, the helper of a ‘Grameen Paribahan’, a private transport company. Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) sources said Sabiha, who was also an activist of Quantum Foundation, was hit by a covered van in front of BTV Bhaban in Rampura when she was crossing the road around 3:15pm. She was rushed to Banasree Al Razi Hospital which referred her to the DMCH where she died around 5pm. She hailed from Madaripur’s Shibchar Upazila. Bus helper Shah Ali was critically injured when his vehicle overturned in front of Badda General Hospital at Uttar Badda around 7:30am. He was rushed to the DMCH where he died around 8:15am. In Jhenidah, a Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD) leader and two other people were killed in separate accidents in the afternoon. A bus crashed into a motorcycle at Jamtala on Kaliganj-Kotchandpur road in Kaliganj Upazila around 4:30pm, instantly killing bikers JCD leader Sohel Uddin, 28, son of Kasim Uddin of Gayespur village, and his friend Faruk Hossain, 30, son of Atiar Rahman of Bathan village in Sadar upazila. In another accident, Mehrab, 4, son of Rasel Miah of Chaklapara in Jhenidah town, was crushed to death by a truck at Madhupur on Jhenidah-Magura road in Sadar Upazila, around 5pm. In Pirojpur, a man was killed and his wife injured as their bike crashed into a roadside tree at Ranipur in Sadar Upazila in the morning. The dead is Tuhin Akon, 40, a fish trader and son of late Abur Rashid Akon of Khulna. The injured is Farzana Ferdous Nisha, 30. In Tangail, five people, including a woman and a child, were killed and nine others injured in a head-on collision between a bus and a truck at Gharinda Bypass Intersection on the Dhaka-Tangail highway in Sadar Upazila in the morning. Two of the deceased were identified as Nur Hossain Manik, 35, supervisor of the bus who hailed from Sadar upazila of Kurigram district, and Mati Miah, 55, of Anantapur village in Phulbari Upazila of Kurigram. In Munshiganj, two people, including a woman, were killed and another was injured when a bus hit a CNG-run auto-rickshaw on Dhaka-Chittagong highway in Gazaria Upazila in the morning. The deceased were identified as Siraj Miah, 45, son of Labat Ali of Char Bausi village, and Saleha Begum, 40, wife of Mostafa Kamal of Guagachhi village in the Upazila, according to a news agency.