Every Eid journey starkly exposes the chaos and mismanagement in the country’s road and transport system, showing how citizens are forced to suffer. This year’s Eid travel was no exception.

At the beginning of the holiday, a launch accident at Sadarghat in Dhaka shocked the nation, and at the end, a bus sank in the Padma River at Daulatdia Ghat in Rajbari, plunging the entire country into grief. The massive loss of life in this accident has left us stunned. The tragedy also highlights once again the extreme insecurity and fragility of citizen safety in Bangladesh.

The deaths of 26 people in the Padma at Daulatdia Ghat cannot simply be called an “accident”; this is systemic killing. Following the incident, the Rajbari district administration formed a five-member investigative committee.