Three-wheelers are still operating on the highways throughout the country, and the police feel helpless to enforce the instructions of the government or the inspector general of the police to stop them from doing so.
The government on February 9 ordered law enforcement agencies not to allow unregistered three-wheelers on national highways to lower the level of fatal accidents.
Inspector General of Police Hasan Mahmud Khandaker told New Age on Monday that there was a tendency in the owners of the three-wheelers, including the Nasimon and Karimon vehicles which use shallow tube-well engines, to operate them on highways despite the police's stringent orders not to do so.
He said that he had again asked the superintendents of police of concerned districts to arrest the owners of the vehicles who allow them to operate on the highways in violation of the government's directive.
Police and other sources told New Age that the owners were able to operate such vehicles on highways as they had 'managed' the local police administration and leaders of the ruling party.
Visits to southern districts such as Barisal, Jhalakathi, Faridpur and Patuakhali showed that non-motorised vehicles were running on highways with the full knowledge of the police.
The superintendent of police in Barisal, Devdas Bhattacharya, told New Age that all the police could do was to seize the manpowered vehicles and hold them for a few days.
'The police cannot prevent the running of such non-motorised vehicles on highways as the number of policemen is too limited to cope with the large highway network. We can only seize the vehicles, but once they are released the owners again start running them on the highways,' he told New Age.
He also said that police cannot even file cases against the vehicle owners as these vehicles are made locally and are completely unregistered. 'Our only option is to destroy them but we can't do that on humanitarian grounds,' he added.
Habibur Rahman, a resident of Gournadi in Barisal who owns a battery-run three-wheeler, said that they ran the vehicles on highways by 'managing' the local administration.
Such vehicles are plying the highways in the south-west part of the country, especially on the Jhenaidah-Kushtia, Jhenaidah-Jessore, Jhenaidah-Magura and Jhenaidah-Chuadanga routes.
The superintendent of police in Jhenaidah, Rezaul Karim, said that the police were conducting enforcement operations every day and were seizing a large number of non-motorised vehicles.
They will gear up their activities in keeping with the government's instruction, said the police superintendent. 'When we seize such vehicles, ruling party leaders order us to release them by giving us undertakings that the owners of those vehicles will not run them on highways,' he said.
He said that highway police should take the responsibility of compelling the owners of the vehicles not to run them on highways in order to curb fatal road accidents.
Source : New Age
