Dhaka: Transports workers set a police vehicle on fire in the city’s Gabtoli as part of the countrywide indefinite transport strike on Tuesday evening as they demonstrated demanding cancellation of a provision to sentence errant drivers to life in prison or the death penalty for road accidents.

Police and witnesses said agitating transport workers swooped on police as they tried to refrain the agitating transport workers at Gabtoli in the evening. At one stage the unruly transports workers threw brickbats targeting the law enforcers at at about 7:30pm.

At about 8:04pm, they set a police car on fire.  

Sources at the Fire Service Control room said a firefighting unit went to Gabtoli to douse the flames but it failed to reach the spot due to workers’ agitation.

Contacted, Tajul Islam, president of Bangladesh Inter-district Truck Drivers Union, said police charged batons and lobbed tear gas shells to disperse the agitating transport workers.

They brought the situation under control at about 8:30pm, he added.

Countrywide indefinite transport strike, enforced by Bangladesh Road Transport Workers Federation, left people in distress and caused immense sufferings from Tuesday early morning.

Bangladesh Road Transport Workers Federation announced the indefinite strike across the country protesting a court verdict that sentenced bus driver Jamir Hossain to life in prison for a road crash that killed five people, including prominent filmmaker Tareque Masud and renowned cinematographer Mishuk Munier, in 2011.

Senior leaders of the federation took the decision at a meeting in the capital on Monday night as a court here sentenced another driver Mir Hossain Miru to death in a case filed over a road crash that left a woman dead in Savar on 2003.