Teaching us a lesson by shutting down elevated expressways and metro

The Dhaka metro rail and the elevated expressway have remained shut since 18 July following unprecedented violence that day. Of these two services, the elevated expressway was partially opened to the public without the toll collection services, three days back.

Why were both services shut for so long? Some thugs set two toll booths of the elevated expressway on fire. One toll booth is on the other side of the Mahakhali bus stand and the other is in Banani. Similarly, a group of thugs destroyed equipment and structures of two metro rail stations in Mirpur.

After these destructions, the metro rail authorities assessed the damage to the stations and said it might take up to a year to repair them. The chief of the metro rail authorities even noted that repairing the damages might cost Tk250 crore. The then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina visited the metro rail facilities on 25 July and said tough actions would be taken against those who damaged the two stations.

The day both these infrastructures were attacked by thugs, the tollbooths of the Hanif Flyover also came under attack. These booths are equipped with specialised equipment and computers to automatically track the traffic and the toll collection system has been completely demolished.

This is what seems odd to us.

When the metro rail and the expressway were kept shut on the ground of loss of the toll plaza and the station infrastructures, the Hanif Flyover was not kept shut down. The Hanif Flyover is run by the private Orion Infrastructure. To ease suffering of the commuters, Orion Infrastructure resumed the operation of the flyover manually within a couple of days. This is cumbersome—but it still provided relief for the commuters.

Why could not the authorities open up at least the elevated expressway? They could have opened up the expressway by keeping the two toll booths shut—just like they are doing now. But they did not. Why? Is it because Sheikh Hasina wanted to teach the citizens a "lesson" for the violence for which the citizens were not responsible? Is it because Hasina believes that since this infrastructure was built during her regime—she owns it?

Perhaps so. In the past she blatantly threatened the countrymen for criticizing her government over the foreign currency reserve crisis and power sector anomalies.

At a press conference on 6 October last year, she said:  Many people can make different statements regarding the forex reserve. If it triggers such a large-scale discussion, I will bring it down to the level I found when forming the government and will go into the election. I will pull it up (after the election) but want to show the people what the previous situation was like."

"Should I decrease the electricity supply from the current 100% to 28%? Let everyone experience what the situation was like (during the BNP government). We forget everything. I had asked the power minister to cause load shedding for some time daily so that people can keep the issue of load shedding in mind. They will have to buy fuel to run generators," she added.

Can she do such things? Did she build this forex reserve with her own money? Did she build the power plants with her own money?

She always behaved like she owns the infrastructure and the foreign currency reserve or any public property that was developed during her regime. It seems that Bangladesh does not have any taxpayer and as a nation, we do not have any debt liability. Sheikh Hasina herself was paying for everything.

Finally and most importantly, why make the people suffer—when those attacks on the infrastructures were never carried out by students or the general public? Many witnesses claimed that they saw ruling party men and even the police, along with street thugs attacking these infrastructures.

Sheikh Hasina did not behave like a statesman when she wanted to teach the public a lesson. By shutting down the metro rail or expressway, she treated the countrymen like her enemies—enemies that can be gunned down, humiliated and taught a lesson just like that.