Bus service started after 3 and a half hours, the leaders and workers did not move from the police station

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COMILLA, BANGLADESH — Intercity bus services from Comilla’s key transport hub ground to a halt for nearly three and a half hours on Sunday following the high-profile detention of Comilla Adarsh Sadar Upazila BNP President Rezaul Qayyum. Transport workers and political loyalists blocked major routes, including the vital Comilla-Dhaka and Comilla-Sylhet corridors, before operations were normalized later in the afternoon.

A joint team from the Comilla Kotwali Model Police Station and the District Police’s Detective Branch (DB) detained Qayyum from his residence in the city’s Shashangacha area around 12:00 PM. In immediate retaliation, transport workers aligned with the leader suspended all vehicular dispatches from the terminal and forced local markets to shutter. While long-distance passenger coaches resumed schedules by 3:30 PM, the area remained highly volatile as a tense political standoff developed at the regional police headquarters.

The underlying motive behind the state’s rapid intervention appears tied to a recent viral incident involving public grievances over transport extortion. According to local commercial drivers, the friction escalated significantly two days prior when the Member of Parliament for the Comilla-5 (Burichong-Brahmanpara) constituency, Md. Jaseem Uddin, was passing through the Shashangacha sector. Local auto-rickshaw operators intercepted the lawmaker’s motorcade, vocally demanding an immediate end to systemic extortion rackets operated under the guise of “Gate Pass” (GP) fees. A video recording of this interaction spread extensively across social media platforms, leading local transport operators to believe that Qayyum’s sudden detention was an institutional reaction to that specific embarrassment. Consequently, angry enforcement groups at the terminal began selectively blocking and intimidating incoming three-wheelers from the Burichong and Brahmanpara upazilas.

Law enforcement officials have maintained a tight lid on the specific statutory charges, though internal sources within the security apparatus confirmed that the operation was executed under direct mandates from senior government echelons. Anonymous investigators indicated that Qayyum is being heavily interrogated regarding long-standing allegations of monopolizing extortion networks at the Shashangacha Bus Terminal, which sits directly adjacent to his personal estate.

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By late evening, senior leaders and a large contingent of BNP supporters had established a permanent sit-in outside the Kotwali Model Police Station, briefly surrounding the primary entry gates to shout slogans demanding his unconditional release. Safiul Alam, the General Secretary of Adarsh Sadar Upazila BNP, sought to de-escalate the situation, asserting that the party leadership was officially informed that Qayyum was merely brought in for routine administrative questioning. Alam adamantly denied Qayyum’s involvement in any terminal extortion rackets, claiming that transport workers had spontaneously initiated the highway blockade purely out of personal affection for the leader.

The administrative gridlock within the station remains complex. Kotwali Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Touhidul Anwar verified that the BNP leader was being held inside his personal office, where he was undergoing active questioning by the Additional Superintendent of Police for the Sadar Circle, Saiful Malik. The OC emphasized that while Qayyum remains in secure state custody for strategic verification, a formal arrest warrant had not yet been processed at the time of reporting. Additional police units have been deployed along the station perimeter to maintain civil order and ensure routine public service activities remain undisrupted.