Clashes at RU: Small traders suffer Tk 1cr losses

Zahangir Alam has been passing sleepless nights since his varieties store was torched during Saturday's clashes between Rajshahi University students and locals in Binodpur Bazar area.

The clashes created a two-day deadlock at the campus and left some 200 persons injured.

"I'm losing sleep at night thinking about how to survive and recover from the losses that I have suffered," the 52-year-old Alam said.

Alam used to run his store with his brother Zafar Ali. Since his brother died in May last year, he became the lone bread-earner for an extended family of 14 members.

The fire and looters cost him a total of Tk 7 lakh, including Tk 3.5 lakh in cash that was in his shop for mobile financial services.

"I had to watch helplessly as arsonists torched my shop after looting the stored items in sacks. I could do nothing," he said.

Alam had borrowed Tk 3 lakh from a bank and Tk 2.5 lakh from a micro-credit lending organisation for his business.

"I bought goods for my shop with the borrowed money and slowly paid off the loan from my revenue. This is how we survived. Now everything has been destroyed," Zahangir Alam said.

Like Alam, at least 80 small traders of the bazaar have turned destitute suffering an estimated loss of Tk 1 crore, said Shahidul Islam, president of Binodpur Bazar Small Traders Association.

Among the 80 traders, 45 completely lost their shops, while 35 other shops were partially looted and damaged during Saturday night's arson attacks and clashes, he said.

"Students of the university are our customers. Our livelihood is dependent on them. So, we never mistreated the students. Still, the traders had to suffer the impact of Saturday's incident," Islam said.

He feared the law enforcers are likely to harass them as three cases were filed against a total of 1,100 unnamed persons.