Staff Reporter:
A series of deadly road accidents across northern Bangladesh over the past 24 hours has left at least five people dead and one critically injured, with truck and unidentified vehicle collisions proving fatal in each case.
The back-to-back tragedies have once again cast a grim spotlight on road safety across Bangladesh’s highways, particularly during the Eid travel period when traffic pressure intensifies across the country.
A retired additional district and sessions judge was killed after being struck by a truck in Gaibandha’s Sundarganj upazila late Sunday night.
The victim, Auwal Sarkar, 56, of Maniram village under Bamandanga union, was returning home from Gaibandha town by motorcycle when a truck coming from behind collided with him near Bamandanga Filling Station on the Sundarganj–Rangpur regional highway at around 10:30pm.
The impact threw him onto the road, where the truck subsequently ran over him. He died on the spot.
Auwal had served as a judge in several districts, including Rangpur, Lalmonirhat, Bagerhat, Gazipur, Dhaka and Satkhira, before retiring and later practising as an advocate at the Gaibandha Judge Court.
Sundarganj Police Station Officer-in-Charge Shahin Mohammad Amanullah confirmed the incident and said the body had been handed over to the family after legal formalities.
“The truck fled the scene and could not be seized,” he said, adding that the family was preparing to file a case.
In another heartbreaking accident, a father and his four-year-old daughter were killed when an unidentified vehicle struck their motorcycle on the Dhaka–Rangpur highway in Bogura’s Shajahanpur upazila early Monday morning.
The victims were identified as Anisur Rahman and his daughter Pushpa. His wife, Ayesha Begum, sustained critical injuries and was admitted to Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College Hospital.
According to fire service officials and local residents, the family was travelling by motorcycle from Rangpur to their ancestral home in Pabna for the Eid holidays when the accident occurred near the Banani area around 6:30am.
The collision threw all three family members onto the highway. Anisur and his daughter died at the scene.
Bogura Fire Service official Shahidul Islam said rescue workers reached the site around 7:00am and recovered the bodies before sending the injured woman to hospital.
Authorities are still trying to identify the vehicle responsible for the crash.
Meanwhile, two people were killed after a dump truck crushed an auto-rickshaw in Naogaon’s Patnitala upazila early Monday.
The accident occurred around 2:00am near Gahanmor intersection on the Nazipur–Dhamoirhat road.
The deceased were identified as auto-rickshaw driver Abu Hasan, 46, from Sujail village in Mahadebpur upazila, and passenger Tarikul Islam, 45, a microbus driver from Durgapur village in Dhamoirhat upazila.
Patnitala Police Station Officer-in-Charge Niamul Haque said the dump truck struck and crushed the passenger-carrying auto-rickshaw approximately 500 yards north of the intersection.
The vehicle was mangled in the collision, killing both men instantly.
“The truck driver fled the scene immediately after the accident,” the OC said, adding that preparations were underway to file a case.
The latest accidents come as millions of people begin travelling home ahead of Eid-ul-Azha, increasing traffic congestion and pressure on highways nationwide.
Road safety experts have repeatedly warned about reckless driving, speeding, unsafe overtaking and the weak enforcement of traffic laws during festive travel periods.
For many families, however, those concerns have now become personal tragedies — turning what should have been journeys home into final journeys.
