Hit by student protests, Suprobhat buses will run under Samrat facade

The owners of Suprobhat Private Limited are trying to operate its buses under another company, Samrat, in Gazipur by changing colour and appearance of the vehicles banned in Dhaka in the wake of student protests against a fatal road crash.

Some Suprobhat buses were painted anew and the label was changed to ‘Samrat Transline (Pvt) Limited’, but some others were carrying both Suprobhat and Samrat labels on them at a garage at Gazipura in Tongi on the outskirts of the capital on Wednesday. 

A transport workers’ leader, requesting anonymity, told bdnews24.com that Suprobhat was changing its name and its buses were being put under Samrat after a Suprobhat bus ran over and killed a university student at Nodda in Dhaka on Tuesday, triggering mass protests.

With the route permit under the name ‘Suprobhat Special Service’, it had operated bus from Uttara to Sadarghat via Rampura.

The firm has several owners who are now trying to resume operations under different names, the transport leader said.

Samrat operates buses from Mohakhali to Gazipura via Uttara.

Suprobhat also transport passengers from Uttara to Gazipura breaching its route permit, several transporters said.

It is not clear how many buses have been transferred from Suprobhat to Samrat.

Kamrul Islam, a supervisor of Suprobhat at Tongi Station Road, told bdnews24.com he knew nothing about the transfer of the buses.

Nazrul Islam, an assistant commissioner of Gazipur Metropolitan Police’s traffic department, said there is no bar on transferring buses from one company to another if the procedure is done as per law.

After two days of student protests, Bangladesh Road Transport Authority or BRTA on Wednesday banned Suprobhat and Jabale Noor from running buses in the capital until further notice.

It has asked for papers of vehicles of these two companies for scrutiny.

“Since they are involved with accidents time and again, we will check the issues,” Shafiquzzaman Bhuiyan, a deputy director at BRTA, said.  

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