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An indefinite strike, enforced by transport owners and workers over a six-point demand including the removal of the Sylhet Deputy Commissioner and the reopening of all stone quarries, began on Tuesday morning, causing widespread suffering to commuters and passengers across the city.
The strike was called on Monday evening at a press conference held by Sylhet District Road Transport Owners-Workers Unity Council at a city hotel.
Due to the strike, no long-distance buses departed from Sylhet, and inter-district buses remained missing from the central terminal, as per a UNB report.
Passengers were seen waiting at several points across the city such as Zindabazar, Ambarkhana, Tilagarh and Madina Market for vehicles though a low number of city transports, including CNG-run auto-rickshaws, was running.
Transport leaders said vehicles carrying patients and HSC exam candidates are out of the purview of the strike.
At the press conference, transport leader Moinul Islam alleged that the transport and stone-related sectors in Sylhet had long suffered under a fascist regime, and a syndicate backed by the then ruling party was responsible for widespread hardship.
He also criticised the 2018 Road Transport Act’s provision capping economic life of vehicles—20 years for buses or minibuses and 15 years for trucks, pickups, and CNG-run vehicles—as a blueprint to destroy transport workers.
The transport leader demanded the cancellation of private contracts for issuing fitness certificates and accused police of harassing drivers in the name of vehicle checks.
Initially, a five-point demand was submitted to the Sylhet Metropolitan Police Commissioner on July 6. On Monday, the demand for the removal of the DC was added, bringing the total to six.
The demands include cancellation of the 2018 transport law’s lifespan clause, withdrawal of the suspension on stone quarry leases and resumption of operations, cancellation of private agency contracts for issuing vehicle fitness certificates and rollback of increased taxes, restoration of electricity to crusher mills and compensation for damages, removal of DC Mahbub Murad, and an end to police harassment of drivers.