DHAKA, Feb 10 : Bangladesh’s capital and other major cities on Tuesday witnessed a massive travel rush as thousands thronged to bus terminals and railway stations to travel to their hometowns ahead of elections.
Bangladesh will hold parliamentary elections on February 12 – the first since the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in massive country-wide protests in August 2024.
Transport operators said they faced unusually heavy numbers of passengers with long queues of people waiting for travel tickets at major bus terminals and train stations.
“It is almost like the traditional rush of homebound passengers we see during Eid vacations,” said Abdur Rahim, who runs a tea stall adjacent to Dhaka’s Mohakhali Bus terminal.
Witnesses sketched nearly identical scenes at other bus terminals and Dhaka’s main Kamalapur Railway station, which operate buses and train services to different directions of the country from the capital.
“I want my family to move to village home as people are saying there could be massive violence during the voting and days thereafter,” said Jashim Uddin, a commercial press worker in Dhaka.
Newspaper reports said a huge number of people were going to their native village homes from the southeastern port city of Chattogram and other metropolises, but alleged that the passengers complained of transport operators charging extra fares at many places.
Many passengers also said they waited for hours with their family members for buses, but the terminal operators said they were faced with a transport shortage as many buses were requisitioned by law enforcement agencies for election duties.
Bangladesh police’s inspector general, Baharul Alam, said the main law enforcement agency would be backed by armed forces and paramilitary troops to maintain the law and order situation during the voting and afterwards.
“A three-tier security arrangement will be put in place at the country’s over 42,000 polling centres and each centre will have a static police presence to be supported by mobile patrol teams and striking forces to respond to any emergency,” he said.
Officials earlier said nearly one million security personnel, including those from various agencies and the paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh, were deployed across the country to maintain law and order.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has emerged as the forerunner in the upcoming elections, with its longtime ally, Jamaat-e-Islami, being its main rival in the absence of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s now disbanded Awami League, debarred from the fray. (PTI)
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