Hartal begets hardship
With his luggage in four trolleys, migrant worker Mohammad Hanif was being stranded for two and a half hours at Shahjalal International Airport since he landed at 1:00pm there.
"No driver agrees to go to Feni. I have to wait till the hartal ends to rent a vehicle," said Hanif, who returned home yesterday after four years.
Like him, dozens of migrant workers and other passengers who arrived at the airport got stuck for hours on the second day of the 48-hour shutdown as they could hardly manage vehicles to reach their destinations.
"It is really pathetic. I returned home after five years but cannot go home now because of the strike," commented Aminul Islam Rubel, another migrant worker.
"We don't want hartal. We don't want any kind of confrontation between the government and the opposition. We have returned home on leave and want to spend our short stay peacefully with our family and relatives," said Motaleb Hossain, who returned from Oman.
Like the first day of the strike enforced by the main opposition BNP and its allies, thousands of city dwellers, mainly commuters, faced huge suffering.
Two spells of rain in the morning and afternoon added insult to their injuries. Many reached their offices and other workplaces and returned home using different means including CNG-run auto-rickshaws, rickshaws, rickshaw-vans and everyday walking.
The outdoor and emergency departments of the public hospitals witnessed fewer patients yesterday, while accident victims and other patients struggled to reach the hospitals due to transport crisis.
Relatives of three victims of head injuries -- Kaniz Fatema, her mother Qamrun Nahar and her sister Lucky Akhter -- spent an hour in Savar only to manage a vehicle to come to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
After visiting her younger sister at DMCH, Jasmine Begum was waiting for a bus for one and a half hours at Shahbagh intersection under heavy downpour in the afternoon.
"I need to go home at Monipuri Para as quickly as I can since I will have to fetch food for my sister. But I don't know whether I will be able to revisit her as it is tough to manage a vehicle," said Jasmine.
Migrant workers Abdul Alim, Mohammad Sohel and Abdur Rahim of Sirajganj spent two nights on the footpath in front of Shahjalal International Airport after reaching there at 2:00am on Tuesday. Their flight was at 9:00 last night which they did not want to miss for a vehicle crisis due to hartal.
Fruits seller Abdur Rahim of Shyamoli fears huge loss as his stock was being rotten due to poor sale.
Prices of vegetables and fish went up in the kitchen markets as sufficient amount could not be transported to the capital.
"The prices of vegetables and fish have shot up by 10 to 15 percent in the last two days because of a drop in supply," said Abdul Karim, a vegetable vendor of Bhasantak Bazar in the capital.
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