LAHORE, April 28: Commuters across the Punjab have been facing enormous problems since Friday when police began impounding all intra and inter-city public transport vehicles for referendum.

Most of transporters have taken their vehicles off the road for fear of their being impounded.

On Sunday, long queues of commuters were seen at bus-stops and stands in the city.

Reports pouring in from the other parts of the province have suggested the police have ruthlessly been impounding public transport vehicles since Friday. They even forced marriage parties to get off the vehicles in some cases.

“I paid Rs50 to get to Lahore on a truck from Kasur,” Moeen Jamal, a city vegetable market vendor, said. He said he did wait for some transport for four hours and later he had to get on to a truck to reach Lahore.

Several passengers at the city bus-stops told this reporter that they had been waiting for hours for transport.

Ismail, who was with his family at a bus-stop in Samanabad, said he wanted to take his children to the Racecourse Park, but there was no transport for two hours.

Motorcycle-rickshaw, cab and rickshaw drivers were found exploiting the situation by charging exorbitant fare. One Rashid told this reporter that he paid Rs100 for a rickshaw from The Mall to Gulberg.

Commuters exchanged harsh words and even they clashed while getting on to a few vans plying on city roads. Women and children were the worst hit as they had to travel by standing in the vans along with men. Elderly people were also maltreated.

The conductors of vans that managed to escape the impounding drive also charged high fare.

“Don’t complain of high fare. Its a service we are providing to you people in such a situation,” a conductor of a van told a commuter when he protested over charging. “Who dare bring his vehicle on the road these days?” the conductor asked.

The driver of the same van hurled an abuse at the authorities concerned when he was told that the administration had claimed the owners of the vehicles would be paid for the referendum duty. “Not to talk of payment,” he said, claiming: “We have to pay for the return of the vehicles and documents.” He alleged traffic policemen were bribed to get documents of the vehicles back.

In the fresh impounding drive, Punjab police squads in league with traffic policemen had set up pickets on all main city roads, its entry and exit points. They kept on intercepting vehicles running on intra and inter-city routes and offloading passengers. Similar exercises were made in other cities of the Punjab. Later, the vehicles were parked at various police warehouses, police stations and other government buildings.

A police source said the impounding of vehicles would continue till the referendum day as the administration had not yet met the target. The vehicles would be given to Nazimeen to transport voters and government officers to polling stations, he said.