Police to issue travel pass to control movement during lockdown

Police are set to issue travel passes to the public in an effort to regulate emergency movements, including transportation of goods and services, during the ongoing coronavirus lockdown.

The law-enforcement agency has opened a website for citizens to register and apply for the travel clearance.

Police will subsequently verify the applications and issue passes accordingly.

The service, however, is currently in the pilot stage but will fully launch soon, according to the website.

Vehicles are currently moving in and out of Dhaka and other districts in the name of emergency movement, a police officer told bdnews24.com. This has given rise to a chaotic situation, he added.

The number of coronavirus patients has been on the rise in Dhaka and other parts of the country. Despite the government's stay-at-home orders, people have been crowding the streets under various pretexts.

As of Wednesday, Bangladesh has registered 26,738 infections with 386 deaths.

Globally, over 4.9 million people have been infected by the novel coronavirus and 328,115 have died, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.