At 8 am each morning, Shafiqul Islam Shafi walks onto a busy stretch of the Rangpur-Dinajpur highway carrying a baton and a whistle.

He raises one hand at approaching vehicles and uses the other to usher pedestrians across. When children or elderly people hesitate at the roadside, he walks over himself.

He is often still there at 11 at night.

Shafi, 55, has been doing this for nearly three years at Khiyarjumma in Taraganj upazila of Rangpur. He works through heat and rain, trying to impose some order on a road crowded with buses, trucks, pickups, motorcycles and microbuses.

There is one unusual detail: Shafi is not a traffic policeman.

Nobody hired him. He has no appointment letter, fixed working hours or salary. The uniform he wears was borrowed from a police officer. Even his shoes came from a Fire Service official.

What he does have is a reason for turning up.

“I have seen people die in accidents right before my eyes at this place,” Shafi told Daily Waadaa. “I do not want to see anyone else die in an accident before my eyes here.”

The road that put him to work

Khiyarjumma, in Alampur Union, sits along a heavily travelled section of the Rangpur-Dinajpur highway. For pedestrians, crossing the road can mean negotiating a continuous stream of fast-moving vehicles.

Shafi said he had watched accidents happen there repeatedly. Eventually, he decided watching was no longer enough.

There was no recruitment process and no instruction from the authorities. He simply began showing up with a whistle and baton and trying to help.

That improvised arrangement became a routine. Every morning, Shafi takes his position along the highway. He signals drivers to slow down, watches for gaps in traffic and escorts pedestrians across. Then he does it again.

Days became months. Months became years.

Local residents began referring to him as their “unpaid traffic policeman.”

Mizanur Rahman, who lives in the area, said Shafi's regular presence had made pedestrians more cautious and helped manage vehicles on the busy stretch.

Local resident Abdul Haque believes the unusual service deserves more than local appreciation.

“The administration and well-off members of society need to stand beside volunteers like Shafiqul Islam Shafi,” he said.

A volunteer who cannot afford his own uniform

Shafi is hardly a man with time and money to spare.

A resident of Khiyarjumma Bazar in Ward No 2 of Alampur Union, he is a father of six. His father is Esar Uddin Mahmud. Shafi's family has struggled financially, and he said economic hardship has caused tensions at home.

Still, much of his day is spent on the highway doing work for which he receives nothing. The details of his makeshift uniform reveal something about the arrangement.

Shafi could not afford all the gear himself. A police officer lent him the clothes he uses while directing traffic. A Fire Service official provided the shoes.

Yet neither the absence of pay nor his own financial difficulties have persuaded him to stop.

His stated calculation is considerably simpler: if his presence can prevent another death on the road, he will continue standing there.

The authorities are clear about Shafi's status.

“Shafi is not an employee appointed by us,” Md Mostafizar, officer-in-charge of Taraganj Highway Police Station, told Waadaa. “However, I have heard that he voluntarily performs traffic duties in the Khiyarjumma area.”

That distinction matters. Shafi has no formal traffic-police authority and no government position. His name is not on a payroll. But on this patch of highway, formalities have produced an odd contrast.

The man without the job has, for nearly three years, kept reporting for it.

At around 11 each night, when traffic finally begins to ease, Shafi heads home. There is no overtime payment waiting for him and no promotion to work toward. A few hours later, morning returns to Khiyarjumma.

So does Shafi.

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