The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Homebound people have already started to return home to celebrate Eid-ul-Azha, second largest religious festival of the Muslims.

Sale of advance tickets of Bangladesh Railway (BR) closed yesterday with huge rush of homebound people at the Kamalapur Railway Station in Dhaka.

The city dwellers started crowding the railway station from Friday evening to collect their advance tickets for journey on December 20.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) opened its Eid special service from December 12 to facilitate trouble free journey of the passengers on the occasion of Eid-ul-Azha.

Tickets of different bus operators have already been sold out although it is alleged that sale of tickets in black market is still continuing.

Kawsar, a university student, who queued up yesterday night and left the station at about 2:00am was replaced by one of his relatives in the line, while departing the station he said, "I am going to sleep and come back again in the morning. Then my relative will go home and I shall take over from him to get the tickets for our journey to Jamalpur."

In such a way, more than 200 people queued up on Sunday morning to buy advance tickets for their respective destinations.

A railway officials said that tickets for standing passangers would be available at the station counters every day to cope with the rush of additional passengers for the Eid festival.

Some 22 inter-district trains with extra coaches would ply every day different routes from December 16, he said.

Meanwhile, a special train on the Dhaka-Dewanganj route and two special trains on the Chandpur-Chittagong route will start plying from December 17 and continue till December 31. Therefore, the weekly holidays of the railway employees had been cancelled till December 31.

During the Eid-ul-Azha about 50,000 people will leave Dhaka by train every day availing the Eid train service from December 16 to December 20, before the Eid day.

Meanwhile, bookings of advance cabins in all launches, which ply different southern routes, have also have been completed, according to the launch owners' association.

However, passengers alleged that cabins are still available if anyone wants to pay a section of the launch staff at least Tk 500 more than the normal fair.