Commuters returning to Dhaka after Eid holidays had to endure a 20km-long tailback on the Dhaka-Tangail-Bangbandhu Bridge Highway in the district on Saturday morning. Vehicles began piling up on the high-speed corridor on Friday night. By this morning, traffic on the highway almost came to a standstill, triggering the long tailback. Ataur Rahman, in-charge of Elenga highway Police, attributed the tailback stretching from Bangabandhu Bridge point to Jolfoi point on the highway to heavy pressure of Dhaka-bound vehicles. Also read: Gazipur gridlocked: Traffic crawls on Dhaka-M’singh highway Our correspondent reports that the desperation to return to Dhaka prompted many to get off public transport vehicles, walk a few kilometres and then hitchhike on passing bikes to reach the capital. The highway police and the district police are working together to bring the traffic situation under control, said Ataur.  

Traffic snarls are not new to Bangladesh, but the gridlock seems to be scaling new highs with each passing day -- commuting even on a national holiday has now become a nightmare.  In Gazipur, for instance, with the country in the grip of the Eid rush, commuters heading home were trapped in monster traffic snarls on the two national highways on Sunday -- a public holiday on account of May Day. A 5km tailback was witnessed on both the Dhaka-Mymensingh and Dhaka-Tangail highways in Gazipur in the morning due to a mad rush of vehicles carrying home-bound people ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr. Also read: 15km tailback on west of Bangabandhu Bridge amid Eid rush Chandona intersection and Chandra areas of Gazipur district were the worst hit. Abdullah Al Mamun, deputy commissioner of Gazipur Metropolitan Police, said, “We have been working relentlessly to make the home-bound journey people a comfortable one for the past week." "The early closure of a number of garment factories for Eid triggered Sunday's snarls," he added. A reality check by UNB revealed that both the carriageways of the two highways are gridlocked, with tailbacks stretching as far as 5km. Also read: Barishal ferry terminal brim with Eid rush Moreover, lack of public transport vehicles like buses and launches forced many to hire microbuses, CNG auto-rickshaws and even pickup trucks to reach their destination.