Desk Report: Sales of school uniforms and similar attires, especially white shirts and black trousers, have spiked mysteriously in the city amid the student movement demanding safe roads, reports Daily Sun.
Cloth traders and dressmakers usually see a rise in the sales of school uniforms at the beginning of academic year, but a sudden surge in the demands for school uniforms in the middle of the year has raised many people’s eyebrows.
Traders said they have been doing a brisk business by selling a large number of uniform-like clothes — white shirt and black trousers — over the last few days.
Students of educational institutions have been staging demonstrations across the country demanding safe roads after a bus killed two students of Shaheed Ramiz Uddin Cantonment School on Airport Road on July 29.
Though the peaceful students protest earned support from people from all walks of life at the beginning, many city dwellers have started to believe that the movement has already been hijacked by the anti-government quarters.
Many opposition activists were seen to infiltrate into the movement to divert the legitimate and popular student protest to a completely different direction.
A vested quarter is trying to use the young students against the government to achieve their political goals. The anti-government quarter has reportedly fielded the activists of anti-quota movement, and their student wings on the ground.
They have also hired drug addicts, unemployed youths and vagabonds to commit acts of sabotage under the cover of the movement.
These saboteurs are wearing school dresses and uniform-like clothes to hide their real identity, which has contributed to increasing the sales of school uniforms in the markets, sources said.
Police arrested a leftist leader named Aminul Islam as an infiltrator into the movement in Shahbagh area on Friday while he was checking licenses of vehicles along with the protesting students.
During visits to different areas of the capital, many groups of teenage and youths were found checking driving license and vehicle registration papers on Friday.
Though most of the protesters were wearing school uniforms, many eyewitnesses expressed their doubt about whether all of the protesters were students.
Firoz Al Mamun, a resident of city’s Malibagh, said though the protesters were school uniforms, many of them did not seem like students in their attitude.
Anisur Rahman, a garment trader in Mohammadpur Super Market, said this is very surprising that the sales of white shirts and pants made a big jump in this time of the year.
“I have visited different areas of the city on Saturday and realised that many of the protesters are not students at all though they were wearing white shirts,” Anisur Rahman.
“It doesn’t take much effort to identify who’s a student and who’s not,” he added.
Rusell Shikder, a shopkeeper in city’s Garibullah Market, said he sold a large number of white shirts and black trousers on Saturday. I have also sold some shirts of Mohammadpur Preparatory School as well.”
He, however, said he has no idea if all who purchased white shirts and black pants were students or not.
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