A 48-hour truck strike began on Wednesday in Sylhet to press five-point demand including immediate release of two truck union members, arrested on March 25 in a murder case, and setting up a truck terminal in the city.
The Sylhet District Truck Shramik Union enforced the strike to push the demands that also included end to toll collection by the highway police and local influential quarters on different roads in the district and illegal toll collection at Companiganj in the name of Truck Owners’ Association.
Goods laden trucks coming from different regions across the country were not allowed to enter in the city due to picketing done by the truck labourers at the entry points from
Wednesday early morning, the sources said.
Hundreds of goods loaded trucks were forced to keep stranded at Chandirpul on the Dhaka-Sylhet Highway, Dakkhin Surma on Sylhet-Tamabi Highway, Salutikar on Sylhet-Bholaganj Road and, Tukerbazar on Sylhet-Sunamganj Road due to the strike, local people said.
The Sylhet District Truck Workers’ Union president, Abu Sarker, said that they would announce a tougher movement programme after ending the ongoing 48-hour strike, if their demands were not met by this time.
The truck union member Abdul Batir Kabir and Abdul Haq Ripan were arrested on March 25 in the city on charge of killing the Bangladesh
Chhatra League Sylhet city unit leader Alfu Ahmed Hasan.