Suprobhat, Jabale Noor buses banned on Dhaka roads amid student protests

The authorities have banned Suprobhat and Jabale Noor transport companies from operating buses in Dhaka following student protests triggered by road crashes.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 20 March 2019, 03:29 PM
Updated : 20 March 2019, 05:15 PM

Bangladesh Road Transport Authority or BRTA in a notice on Wednesday said no Suprobhat or Jabale Noor bus can travel on the streets of the capital until further notice.

The two transport companies have been asked to submit papers of all their buses and minibuses to BRTA within three working days.

Suprobhat operates buses on the route from Uttara to Sadarghat via Nodda while Jabale Noor runs buses on Bosila-Mirpur-Abdullahpur route.

They will have to submit registration and fitness certificates, route permit, insurance certificate and some other documents to the BRTA.

Along with BRTA, Dhaka Metropolitan Police will check the documents and take a decision later, according to the notice.

It comes a day after BRTA suspended the registration of a bus that crushed a student of the Bangladesh University of Professionals to death at Nodda, triggering protests by students.

Similar student protests for safe roads had brought traffic in Dhaka to a halt for days after the two college students were run over and killed during a race between two buses of Jabale Noor last year.

Two buses of Jabale Noor lost route permit at the time. 

File Photo: Enraged students from Shaheed Ramiz Uddin Cantonment College vandalise a bus after two students from the same institution died in a bus accident on Airport Road on July 29, 2018. Photo: Mahmud Zaman Ovi

In the ongoing protests, the students placed several demands, including cancellation of licences of Suprobhat and Jabale Noor.

Shafiquzzaman Bhuiyan, a deputy director at BRTA who signed the notice banning buses of the two companies, said their route permits had not been revoked yet.

“Since they are involved with accidents time and again, we will check the issues,” he said.

Asked why Jabale Noor’s buses have been banned after a long time, the BRTA official said: “They (Jabale Noor) did wrong in the past. But we are thinking about them as well considering the intensity of student protests.”