KARACHI, Sept 3: President Pervez Musharraf’s movement on Sharea Faisal brought a complete halt to the traffic proceeding towards the Sharea via its various important link roads, causing immense suffering to motorists, and the wastage of fuel and time.
Office-goers who were returning home after work and those visiting the city’s major hospitals — the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), Jinnah Post-graduate Medical Centre (JPMC), the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) and the Kidney Centre — were particularly affected as these hospitals are situated in the vicinity of Sharea Faisal.
It was around 8:24 pm that the heavy posse of traffic police which were deployed at all traffic intersections of Sharea Faisal, signalled traffic coming on to the Sharea via several major link roads such as Fareed Bukhari Shaheed Road, SMCHS’s roundabout, Tipu Sultan Road, Mubarak Shaheed Road, to stop, as the president’s motorcade passed through the Sharea Faisal-Fareed Bukhari Road intersection at around 8:46 pm.
However, the traffic, which was stuck up at all important intersections of Sharea Faisal, was allowed to cross or take the route of Sharea Faisal from most of its link roads after 8:55 pm, which meant that traffic at all these intersections remained at a standstill for more than a half-hour (from 8:24 pm to 8:55pm).
The ordeal of motorists did not end even after 8:55 pm, as the traffic — after coming on Sahrea Faisal and proceeding towards hotel Metropole — moved at a snail’s pace owing to an almost complete blockade of the Sharea’s extreme left tracks, where the police’s Toyota pick-ups and a crane were cruising, and also due to the presence of the one-month old joint law-enforcement pickets on each of the extreme right tracks of Sharea Faisal near the Christian cemetery (Gora Qabrastan).
As long as traffic remained stuck up at Sharea Faisal and at its link roads, unprecedented traffic jams were also witnessed on various other busy thoroughfares such as the Tariq Road-Sharea Quaideen intersection (particularly near the Allahwali Chowrangi), Sharea Quaideen-Khalid Bin Waleed intersection, Tipu Sultan Road/Shaheed-i-Millat Road, Society Office, and Sharea Faisal-Mubarak Shaheed Road near the FTC building.
A lady who was sitting in one of hundreds of cars which remained at a standstill near SMCHS’s roundabout was heard saying that “people of a city should, in fact, benefit from the visit of their president. But here, we are being made to suffer on account of his tour of the city.”
