Couple killed in Dhaka road accident

Couple killed in Dhaka road accident

A couple on a motorcycle has been killed after a bus hit them in Dhaka’s Airport road.

The deceased are Akash Iqbal, 33, and his wife Maya Hazarika, 25, from Dakshinkhan Mollartek area.

The accident happened around 7am on Monday, confirmed Airport Police Sub-Inspector (SI) Mashiul Alam.

He said the couple was riding a motorcycle when a bus of Ajmeri Paribahan hit them near Padma Well Gate on the Airport road. They died on the spot.

The bus has been seized but the driver managed to flee. The bodies were sent to Dhaka Medical College Hospital’s morgue for autopsy, he added.

As many as 6,686 people lost their lives and 8,600 were injured in a total of 4,891 road accidents in 2020 in Bangladesh.

The figures were revealed in the Bangladesh Passengers Welfare Association’s (BPWA) annual road accident monitoring report for 2020.

It means on average, roughly 18 people were killed every day in road accidents across the country.

Experts said small vehicles — defying a ban — ply highways and often collide with large vehicles, which leads to a staggering number of fatalities on roads.

Two other big reasons behind the accidents are disorderly movement of vehicles and the reckless attitude of drivers, they said.

mj/