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Requisition, restriction to curtail city mobility

Sayeda Akter
People may face a commuting problem in Dhaka from early today as many private bus and minibus owners have planned to halt or reduce the movement of vehicles, fearing forced requisition of their transports by the police.
Also, the Election Commission has banned movement of some modes of vehicles countrywide from the midnight of December 28 to the midnight of December 29 because of the elections.
The vehicles that came under such restrictions include autorickshaws, taxicabs, pickups, cars, buses, trucks and other human haulers - - and motorised river vessels.
However highways are not under the purview of such a ban.
There are allegations from bus and minibus owners that police have taken away many of their vehicles without any notice for requisition or settling any payment, which the law-enforcement agency denied.
According to the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), around 562 bus and minibuses have been requisitioned during the election time.
DMP says it needs 70 buses and minibuses a day usually for patrolling and other purposes in the metropolis.
Contradicting the figure of the vehicles claimed to be requisitioned by the DMP, the transport owners association said as many as 2,300 vehicles, including bus, minibus, pickup and truck, were taken for polling duty.
As per the Requisition Act of DMP, any company owning more than 30 buses must keep a bus reserved for police every day and the DMP has an unwritten agreement with the owners in this regard. Mohammad Abdul Hannan, managing director of Shikor Paribohan Service Ltd which plies the Mirpur-Jatrabari route, said his company provides a bus on a daily basis for police, complying with such a deal.
Hannan alleged that the DMP was meant to pay Tk 1,000 a day for the requisition of a bus or minibus, which often remained unpaid. On the other hand, the daily income from each bus stands aroundTk3.000, he said.
The DMP took away two buses of his company without any notice for requisition, he pointed out, fearing a repeat of such an incident.
Tapan Rahman, general manager of Choice Transport that plies the same route echoed Hannan and said: "In addition, police do not provide lunch or tiffin to the drivers and helpers of the vehicles requisitioned."
"Staffs often don’t ask for lunch or tiffin in fear of harassment, such as arrest or filing case against the company concerned," he said, adding that transport staffs often show unwillingness to go for any police trip.
Rahman said for this reason most of the private bus and minibus owners reduced the number of city services yesterday and it would do so further today.
.Asked, AKM Hafiz Akhtar. DMP deputy commissioner (transport), denied any such irregularity as the owners alleged. He said the DMP has to take buses and minibuses without any notice for requisition in the face of any urgent situation.
"In an urgent situation we take vehicles from the road and then talk to owners. It is not forced requisitio n," he said.
Hafiz also denied the accusation of not paying the transport companies properly.
"In a poor country like oure we often suffer from fund constraints, but we do not hesitate to pay them on availability of funds," the DMP official said, admitting that the amount to compensate die vehicle owners is inadequate and suggesting an increase in funds.
"We already have sent a proposal to the Ministry' of Home to raise the compensation package and meal charge meant for the vehicle owmers and staff," he added.