February 16, 2008	Saturday	Safar 08, 1429

PESHAWAR, Feb 15: The traffic police have started impounding public transport vehicles for election duties, causing problems for commuters.

A rush of passengers was witnessed on Friday morning at almost all bus stops. The passengers intending to proceed to different cities told Dawn that due to the shortage of vehicles they had to wait for hours. Some passengers with family members complained that due to the rush, transport operators were not accommodating women and children.

The people who had come from Swat and Timergara said the situation in their areas was the same.

Many vehicles, it was learnt, were also hired by candidates to transport voters to polling stations.

The impounding of vehicles by police has caused unrest among transporters and many of them have preferred to keep their vehicles off the roads.

Sarhad Transport Owners Federation president Zahir Shah Yousufzai criticised police for impounding vehicles for election duties without contacting transporters’ representatives.

He said scores of vehicles plying to various cities had been impounded and in some cases drivers who had resisted giving documents to police had been put in lockups. He said if the transporters were not paid properly, they would lodge their protest soon after the elections.

Our Correspondent from Kohat adds: The business community and general public are facing problems due to increasing shortage of transport in Kohat and Hangu as police continue to impound vehicles for more than 6,000 personnel of the security agencies engaged in election duty.

The Awami National Party workers and transporters staged a protest at Hangu Square on Friday morning demanding immediate release of their vehicles. They kept the traffic blocked for about an hour and chanted slogans but no responsible official of the administration came to listen to them.

It is a routine exercise by the police during election preparations to hire vehicles for security duties by various law enforcement agencies. But this time the target set for impounding nearly 500 vehicles in Kohat and Hangu districts by the police had almost crippled the routine life of the people and bazaars were presenting a deserted look.

More than 70 per cent of the people from the rural areas could not come to the city bazaars, as most of the transport was off-road.

According to official sources, the DIG had directed the traffic in charge in the sensitive districts to impound as many vehicles as possible because this time more than 500 vehicles would be required for the movement and patrolling of security forces at 121 sensitive polling stations, some of them as far as 60 kilometres away from the city.

The drivers of these vehicles had also been detained for performing the duty two to three days before the elections to be held on February 18. A few also belong to Swat and Peshawar and had come to Kohat and Hangu to deliver consignments.

Ali Ahmad Khan, who had come from Mingora on Thursday morning to deliver ‘chappals’ at a local store in his Toyota pick-up, was detained by the traffic police.

The concerned staff kept their mobile phones off and those who approached them in person were told that they had received orders from higher authorities not to release even a single vehicle.