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Beggars pester commuters at intersections

FAIZUL A TANIM
Putrefied hands of beggars coming through a car's window or an autorickshaw door imploring passengers for money at every traffic signal has become a common experience of commuters going to workplace or returning home.
Wearing dirty and torn clothes, some of these beggars are blind, some limp with no arms or legs and totally handicapped, strolled by another person. They are seen begging everyday at the busy city intersections.
Displaying X-ray or medical reports are few of the ways they use to draw attention of the commuters. Some of them have genuine reasons to beg but some deceive people pretending to be a handicapped or making appeals in crooked voice.
The city has some 370 intersections, almost all of them including Sonargaon Hotel, Saarc fountain circle, Gulshan 1 &2 circle, Sheraton, Motijheel and Baitul Mukarram are full of beggars standing in distinct gestures to beg money.
Abdul Quddus, a beggar at Sonargaon signal says his hand got cut off in a train accident. Fie was a construction labourer but after the accident, he found no option but to beg on the streets. This has been his profession for the past two or three years.
Most of the beggars say they had either lost job or had been very low paid while working. But a bulk of them admitted that their daily income from begging is more than the amount that can be earned by working 8 to 12 hours a day in a factory.
The beggars at a Motijheel intersection said the office time in the morning and after 2pm when the schools close are the prime times for begging. Usually people from the passingcars refuse to give money after dusk due to security problems.
"You won't feel good early in the morning as you start a fresh day when you see dirty hands of beggars coming through your car's window. It's a total nuisance on the street," said Anisur Rahman, a businessman, stuck in a tailback at Saarc fountain circle.
Traffic congestion keeps on building as the beggars would desperately keep their hands inside the cars even when the traffic signals turn green. Sometimes a beggar’s hand gets stuck in the car window or a car wheel moves over their feet.
Some beggars apply innovative techniques to earn more from begging. There are some women who hire babies from slums on payment to convince the commuters, as they think the strategy is quite fruitful to drawsympathy of people.
Sazzad Ahmed, a traffic constable at Bangla Motor crossing, said the beggars disrupt traffic control at the VIP road intersections most as the movement of vehicles there gets stalled by at least 30 to 40 seconds for these beggars.
Asked why the police allow the beggars to pester the commuters on busy roads, Second Officer of Ramna Police Station Rezaul Hossain said sometimes they pick them up from the VIP roads and send them to Mirpur vagrant centre.
"When we see beggars creating nuisance, we rush and catch them," police sergeant Nizam said at Sonargaon intersection. "But it is not possible for us to constantly keep watch on them as we need to look at the traffic situation," he added.
Not only the beggars, streets urchins hawking flowers, books, candies, maps, bottled water also irritate the passengers got stuck in traffic signal or congestion.
"Even if you do not want to buy these, they will keep on pestering you until you agree," said Mahmud Rahman, who works as an executive in a garment factory.