ISLAMABAD: Thursday was another difficult day for residents of the twin cities after the administration’s fears prompted them to close several main thoroughfares, leaving citizens fuming and having to fend for themselves.

On Wednesday night, the government had ordered the entrances to the capital at Faizabad and Bhara Kahu to be blocked, ostensibly to prevent more people from joining the sit-ins on Constitution Avenue.

However, the mobility of locals was most severely affected by these measures and many took to clearing the roads themselves.

Thursday was also a working day for the people of the twin cities. Since no announcement was made regarding the closure of these main roads, massive gridlocks were witnessed at both points throughout the morning.

“It took me more than an hour to reach Zero Point from the airport,” said Muhammad Sajid, an executive who works in Blue Area.

He said that police had redeployed the containers at Faizabad on Islamabad Expressway and were only allowing one car to pass at a time, creating a massive bottleneck at this already-busy junction.

However, after the queue of vehicles lined up at the checkpoint extended beyond a few kilometers, police decided to clear the road and the containers were set aside around noon.

Faizabad is also a very busy junction because of traffic that is diverted here from the 9th Avenue, which has been completely closed for traffic since the sit-ins entered Islamabad. In addition, the Metro Bus project construction site on that road already makes commuting difficult.

But while motorists on Islamabad Expressway waited for the traffic to clear, residents of Bhara Kahu were not as docile and impatient locals pushed one of the containers blocking Murree Road into the storm drain along the road.

Later in the day, a Punjab police contingent blocked the Islamabad Expressway within their jurisdiction, to prevent more people from joining the sit-ins.

“There was a massive traffic jam from Faizabad right up to Stadium Road as traffic from both sides was forced into one lane as the lane going towards Islamabad was blocked,” said Azhar Hussain, who was stuck in traffic while on his way back from work.

But local police officials told Dawn the road was blocked to prevent a procession of PML-N workers from entering Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2014