KARACHI, April 7: It was the commuters’ nightmare as the city experienced the worst kind of traffic jam on dug up city roads on Friday due to the incompetence of the traffic police and failure of city bodies to forewarn people about the Chup Tazia’s route, and regulate the traffic accordingly.
People were still stuck in traffic jam for hours in many areas till the filing of this report as many vehicles came to a grinding halt after exhausting fuel, adding to their woes.
The traffic police was hardly visible anywhere and when they surfaced after sunset at some places, it was too late. Addition of more vehicles to the road, thanks to easy bank credits, the dug up roads at many places without diversions, compounded the problem.
People of all ages, including women and children, and workers doing business or jobs, were equally affected. Many of them were heard criticising the police and the city management.
Emergency ambulance services were also affected as many such vehicles were seen trapped in the jam and could not reach hospitals in time. Witnesses said that relatives of ailing people were seen shouting and pleading for giving clear way to the ambulances. It will only be known later how many may have succumbed to the commotion.
Besides failure of the traffic police and the city management, the proliferating encroachment of the city roads and diversion of traffic due to development work also complicated the situation.
The amount of smoke emitted by the trapped vehicles would surely have a telling effect on the health chart of the people and commuters, who were caught up in the jam for more than four hours.
A majority of people was unaware of the traditional procession route, as the traffic police who were aware of the same had not announced it.
An area covering a nine-mile radius was affected by the traffic jam. The worst hit areas included were Hassan Square, Jail Chowrangi, Kashmir Road, Shaheed-i-Millat Road and the adjoining shopping areas besides roads leading to Guru Mandir.
Commuters complained that the problem was due to diversion of vehicular traffic on B-1 Road from Dak Khana to the University Road through Sindhi Hotel. Traffic was not allowed beyond that roundabout. As the B-1 Road was heavily encroached, traffic moved at a snail’s speed. A commuter said it took him one and a half hour to reach the University Road near the Askari Park from Dak Khana roundabout.
Those coming from Nazimabad and other directions and wanting to bypass this commotion were trapped at Hassan Square, as the traffic coming from Stadium Road and NIPA added to the jam.
In the midst of madness, drivers of the vehicles heading for Liaquatabad and beyond took a detour and tried to find their way through the B-1 Road, unaware of the problem lying ahead.
Those who headed for Jail Chowrangi were trapped in the bottleneck created by dug-up roads and the flow of traffic from Shaheed-i-Millat Road, Kashmir Road, Jail Road, etc.
The city police and administration took no measures for averting such a chaos although it had become evident in the morning that life would not be easy when another chup tazia procession was taken out after Friday prayers.
In the morning, the entire road till Tower was completely blocked and there was no traffic official present on the scene.
Commuters believe that considerable delay in the completion of dug up roads in the city was also responsible for their woes and a hazard to health.
People returning home from their offices and business places faced the worst ordeal, as they got stuck up in the traffic jam for several hours while their family members got worried. They made frantic calls to newspaper offices to know whether something wrong had happened in the city.
A housewife calling from Nazimabad said that her husband, who worked at a multinational company on the I.I. Chundrigar Road, normally returned home by 7pm, but it was 9pm and he had not yet reached home while his colleagues in office had told her that he had left office at 5.30pm.
“Where should I contact him as he doesn’t have a cellular phone,” the highly perturbed woman asked.
Meanwhile, a woman also called in the evening to complain that her children had not returned home until then.
