Dhaka: Extending his support to the ongoing student movement seeking road safety, Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad on Friday said the capital punishment is the only trial of killing people in reckless driving.

‘We had formulated a law keeping the provision of capital punishment for killing people in reckless driving when Jatiya Party was there in power,’ he said, reports the UNB.

Ershad came up with the remarks while talking to reporters after visiting the Mohakhali house of Diya Khanam Mim, who along with another college student died in a road crash in the city.

He said the current movement of students apolitical one. ‘Their demands are also apolitical. They’re raising the demands for survival. I extend my full support to their movement.’

The Jatiya Party chairman also strongly condemned the ‘repression and attack’ on the agitating students by police. ‘This attack on children can’t be accepted.’

About the anarchy in the transport sector, he said children of 10-12 years of age drive vehicles while the fitness of vehicles seems unnecessary.

Ershad criticised Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan for smiling while giving his reaction to the killing of two students in a road accident. ‘It’s a shameful behavior by a responsible minister.’

He urged the police and transport workers’ associations not to be violent with the demonstrating students, and demanded the government accept their justified demands.

Ershad along with his party’s senior leaders went to Mim’s house around 11:00am and talked to her parents and other family members and consoled them.

On Sunday, Mim and Rajib, students of the college section of Shaheed Ramiz Uddin School and College, were killed as a ‘Jabal-e-Noor Paribahan’ bus ploughed through some students in front of Kurmitola General Hospital on Airport Road, triggering a widespread student protest.