Gazipur : A long tailback was created on the Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway as college students staged a demonstration and put up a barricade on the highway at College Gate in Tongi demanding construction of a footbridge at the point.

The Tongi Police Officer-in-charge Gazi Ruhul Amin said a group of students of Safiuddin Sarker Academy and College gathered in College Gate area and blocked the Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway to press for their demand for a footbridge there for the sake of smooth and risk-free use of the highway.

Due to the blockade, a 10-kilometre long tailback was created on the both sides of the highway, creating immense suffering to the home-goers ahead of Eid-ul-Azha.

Police went to the spot and dispersed the demonstrating students with truncheon, leaving five of them injured.

The demand for the footbridge came in the wake of death of a girl student of the academy in a bus crash in the College Gate area on Sunday.

Tasnim Akter Rafa, a class VII student of the institution, was crushed under the wheels of a speeding bus of ‘Balaka Paribahan’ while she was crossing the highway, prompting the students to start demonstration for a footbridge there.