As a result, many people had to spend the entire night waiting at bus counters.
Mozammel Haq, owner of the ferry, said, “The ferry reached Nalachira Ghat at 5:40 pm. Normally, loading and unloading takes about 40 minutes. However, we were informed in advance that MPs would be coming, so there would be some delay in the departure of the ferry. For the same reason, we did not allow vehicles to board initially. This agitated the passengers. Later, after 8:00 pm, we left for Chairman Ghat.” He claimed that the departure of the ferry was delayed by about 45 minutes compared to the normal time.
When contacted for comment, Member of Parliament Abdul Hannan Masud told Prothom Alo that a vested interest group and an unethical syndicate had deliberately created chaos at the ferry terminal. According to him, the group made motorcycles, trucks, microbuses and other vehicles wait on the road for hours instead of allowing them to board the ferry, causing severe traffic jams on the roads near the terminal.
He said that the same strategy was adopted on the previous day to cause inconvenience to the common passengers and divert attention from the real issue. He alleged that it was intended to discredit him politically and portray him as ineffective.
Abdul Hannan Masood further said that he had reached the ferry terminal at the scheduled time and after reaching he himself was forced to wait for about 45 minutes. He said that misleading information about the incident is being spread for political purposes.