Dhaka College incident

What happened in and around Dhaka College on Sat-urday should not have come to pass. In an unfortunate accident, a speeding microbus had hit a student while he was crossing the road in front of the college and in the process received grievous injury. We are sorry to hear that the student’s legs were fractured and needed hospitalisation for treatment. By all means, he must be given all sorts of medical and financial assistance by the government and the college authorities for his recovery and rehabilitation.

We take the occasion to mention that this is one of many accidents that occurred on the road that passes in front of Dhaka College, and it is deplorable that the relevant authorities have never felt the urgency of con-structing speed breakers or enforcing speed limit on passing vehicles to ensure safety of the students. The road itself is narrow and partly occupied by vendors on the sidewalks, thereby needing better control and man-agement of traffic during busy hours. It is common sense that roads in front of educational institutes are perceived as sensitive spots that require special vigi-lance to avoid accidents.

While we condemn the accident, we at the same time cannot condone the fact that a group of unruly students set fire to the microbus and then went on a car- wrecking frenzy on the road. We can well imagine how law and order can go out of hand when several hundred students take to the street to vent their anger. Such unruliness demonstrated by the students of the prestigious educational institute evoked resentment in the minds of the people, more so for the fact that they had taken law in their own hands. Their hysterical reac-tion and taking the wrath on others, who had nothing to do with the unfortunate accident, crossed the bounda-ries of civility.

We often hear of road accidents near schools, col-leges and universities and loss of lives of students. This must not be allowed to go on. We, therefore, urge the authorities to address the road safety issue near all the educational institutions in the country through imple-menting required measures