As relative calm returns, city's scars linger

At the Banani end of the Mohakhali flyover, a burnt microbus lay overturned. The handful of vehicles that were plying the otherwise busy Airport Road amid the countrywide curfew, drove carefully past the carcass of the vehicle.

The sight of wrecked vehicles, even burnt ones, lying by the side of the road is not rare as accidents and arson attacks during political programmes take place from time to time. The vehicles are quickly removed from the middle of the streets to ease traffic movement.  

But a burnt vehicle left in the middle of one of the city's major avenues gave a feeling of a movie set featuring some war zone in the Middle East – Syria perhaps.

The thing is, the authorities have bigger issues on their plates, so they cannot take care of the ruins that was left by the clashes between agitators, law enforcers and ruling party members over the past few days.

If you stand at Mirpur 10 roundabout, one of the hotspots of the violence that claimed many lives and wounded scores, wind may carry some cotton-like substance that settles over your head and shoulders, much like pollen does during spring.

Photo: Syed Zakir Hossain

But the substance in this case is glass fibre, coming from the remnants of the burnt corrugated fibre sheets that functioned as the roof of the foot overbridge at the roundabout. All the four segments of the overbridge were set ablaze on Thursday.

At the police box right below, at the centre of the now deserted roundabout, a dog was seen going about its business in the middle of the ruins. All the appliances, the air conditioners, even windows and doors have been removed and taken away from the installation. The floor is covered in brick chips.

The fire that engulfed the police box leaves burn marks up to the Metro Rail structure overhead.

Just a few metres away, Dhaka North City Corporation's Zonal office sits in complete ruins, as at least 37 vehicles, including dump trucks, were torched and glass windows were shattered.

Outside, the stainless-steel gates of the Metro Rail station still bear the signs of vandalism it underwent a couple of days ago. The station's interior has also suffered devastation.

A huge concrete drainage ring was put up in the midst of the Begum Rokeya Sarani near Mirpur 10 (acting as a road block), and the road leading up to Mirpur 11 looked reddish in places, bearing witness to agitators breaking bricks to pieces to throw at government elements.

Photo: Syed Zakir Hossain

In Rampura mahalla areas, the scenario played out almost like a regular public holiday on Monday. Some kids were roaming around, adults were smoking or taking tea in roadside stalls, while auto-rickshaw pullers honked the lives out of the neighbourhood as they crossed narrow circles.

But venture out into the main Rampura Road, and you could see various units of security forces impeding the roads from Abul Hotel to Rampura BTV building.

From Ansar Battalion to police forces and the military, they have check posts every few hundred metres. In fact, Ansar Battalion forces have established gun posts at two places in the Abul Hotel area.

They were checking IDs and sending back vehicles that attempted to enter the main road. Just two days ago, this area was a battleground with thousands of protesters occupying the roads when security forces managed to respond only through sound grenades thrown from helicopters.

One kilometre ahead on Bou Bazar Road in Rampura, a burned down truck was the only spectacle as few people and vehicles were allowed to pass.

An eerie silence hovered over the entire area. The only humans freely roaming on the road were the security officials. One person from the alley shouted that he needed to go to the ATM booth. Nobody from the security forces responded to his calls while we were there. 

A few kids who dared out on the main road were punished with squats while having to hold their ears. We could not confirm how many squats the kids had to perform.

Scars of the clashes and violence was more visible yesterday. Since clashes were reported in this area on Sunday, there was a little to no scope to look at these scars.

When a relative calm prevailed (at least till noon when we patrolled the area), stones were left on the roads and flyovers. The dismantled metal partitions on road dividers remained a witness to the hurricane of unprecedented protests that has halted the nation for the last few days.

On Thursday, BRAC University and East West University campuses were one of the key areas of clashes and protests in Dhaka. Yesterday, the entire area, except for the movements of military and other security officials around the BTV centre, was spooky silent.

Traces of the protests were still written on the road in front of the BRAC campus such "everything has gone in the hands of evil" or "there is no value of merit, we don't have a place in Bangladesh," etc.

But no students or officials were seen except for a few passers-by sparsely crossing the area. Dozens of public buses were parked beside the Badda U-loop. Standing on top of the U-loop, all you could see was that the people of this busy city were not in the scene.

The ongoing curfew enforced with the help of armed forces members as well as the Internet blackout suggest that the relative calm that prevails right at the moment may only be an enforced one; with at least 174 confirmed deaths and thousands injured, the scars inside the peoples' hearts may linger.