I MOSTLY head home from the office and back to the office from home, which has been a routine for long but for a few erratic days when I have ventured out in other directions, mostly before and after work hours. But it gradually became challenging, risky too, to shuttle between the office and home, let alone darting out here and there even when the need was pressing as violence broke out with student protests intensifying into the uprising.
The night when a curfew was imposed, it was scary walking down home, with road lights having gone off, stretches having been dark enough for someone to lie in wait and making it difficult for someone to dart inside alleys to safety in case any violence would break out. We were given curfew passes in the afternoon. They were undated cards, with particulars of holders, issued by the deputy police commissioner (headquarters and administration) on behalf of the police commissioner. We had it laminated beforehand 鈥� we had a hard time doing this as every business around was closed 鈥� because we knew we might need to use it for quite some time.
For a few days until the imposition of the curfew, we faced obstacles by students three to four times from home to the office and from the office back home. The protesters, seemingly mostly students of university and college, checked our press identity cards, matched the face with the photograph on the card and let us pass, but in many cases, we had to take detours through stretches strewn with brick chips and bricks as the protesters were stationed at places blocking the road.
The situation became graver at the night the curfew was imposed. We started for home in an office car but was blocked midway on a Hatirjheel road. It was dark, with groups standing guard at points that led into neighbourhoods. Some were patrolling on bicycles, with bludgeons that they did not hesitate to pull out on us in warning us not to move further. We had to get back to the office to drop one of our colleagues who was unwilling to venture further, and farther. We drove back to the office, dropped him off and went back to the place near the Mahanagar gate on Hatirjheel where we were blocked. We heard that violence had continued at Banasree.
I was, finally, dropped off at the point that led into Madhubagh. A handful of young people, holding sticks, were on guard. As I walked down, I tried to hire a rickshaw so that I could travel as far as I could without running into trouble. But no rickshaws were willing. After half an hour鈥檚 hesitating walk, I entered an alley, spacious barely for a rickshaw to pass along a stretch of more than a couple of hundred feet. Dimly lit, the alley was not at all fit for walking, and the houses, with their gates opening onto the alley, were lined along so densely that it was almost impossible for anyone to hide without being noticed.
A few minutes later, a group of young people, holding iron rods, sticks and even long knives, evidently of the Awami League from the slogans that they shouted, hurried in, using abusive words as warnings to a few people who were in the alley. After half an hour, I reached the Shahidbagh opening onto the DIT Road. It was almost midnight. A group of on-lookers were standing at the mouth, sometimes peeking into the road to see what was happening between the group of law enforcers who were standing close to the television station and the group of protesters who had started a fire close to the road opening. All the while a group of bystanders kept darting out a bit for a peek around and then getting back to safety. The law enforcers were firing shells and shots and the protesters were trying to pelt them with stones.
It was a no-go situation. In the dark of the night, it would be difficult to avoid being hit. I started hurrying back to the road stretch where I started. I entered another alley that would supposedly lead to the opening on the DIT Road opposite the television station. After a long walk, interspersed by my asking people at every turn, through the circuitous alley, I reached the opening onto the main road when it was an hour past midnight. As I was walking down the footpath home, a border guard stopped me and asked where I was headed for. As I told him that I was on my way home, he asked me to walk the footpath brushing against the walls.
A few days later, we were headed home, in a CNG-run auto-rickshaw, and took the Mouchak flyover from Moghbazar. As we turned left, law enforcers stopped us, telling us to go back as the mouth of the ramp at Hajipara was blocked with fire that the protesters had started. We went back to Mouchak and were headed for Shahjahanpur. We wanted to try our luck and took the road that opened onto DIT Road wide off the flyover mouth. We found the road jutting out of Khilgaon blocked. A long stretch of the road well before Hajipara was strewn with bricks, boulders and logs. Flames could also be seen from afar. We went back again and crossed Tilpapara.
When we were about to cross a neighbourhood, Bhuiyanpara, seemingly a sprawling, old, congested settlement, to get into Banasree, we heard a few gunshots and bystanders said that the violence had broken out on the Banasree Road passing by the canal. We were stopped several times by people holding iron rods and sticks. We were told to turn off the headlight and slowly move through Banasree. I was worried as the auto-rickshaw was running out of fuel and the driver did not know the area well enough. After a long, slowed-down driving, with hesitation and questions for people in the road and their confusing answers to such questions, we were finally about to get down to the main road. But there was a police barricade on the alley that passed by the television station and opened onto the DIT Road. I was dropped off there.
I was happy that I was almost home. It was again an hour past midnight. As I crossed the road through a hole left in the road fencing by the protesters, I was stopped by the law enforcers. I told them that I was on my way home from the office; he asked me where my office was. As I told him that it was at Hatirpool, he looked at me and into the alley into Banasree, with evident surprise about why I was walking in from the opposite direction.
We had similar experiences on our way to the office. We were mostly stopped at road crossings and were diverted into roads that took us far from the office. There was no scope for argument as the protesters who stopped us often threatened to break or burn the car. They were mostly holding iron rods, logs, jars of kerosene oil and matches. One of our office cars was, in fact, attacked at Badda during the curfew one night. Another was attacked in the later days of July. Travel to the office became extremely difficult, and risky too, during the early days of August, because of the blockade and the detours.
Living through the uprising days was not easy, not in the office and not in my personal life. But it was an experience worth living, with windows opening into light and light coming into darkness. And, the university teachers called off their programme on August 3 on the government鈥檚 removing all entities that it had planned to put under the pension scheme and my daughter started going to the university on October 1, 2024 as classes began.
Concluded.
听
Abu Jar M Akkas is deputy editor at 抖阴精品.
