KARACHI, June 20: A transporters’ group warned the government that they would observe a wheel-jam strike on July 1, against traffic police excesses and impounding of their vehicles.

National Transport Ittehad, Karachi, in its press release stated that the police had been impounding the vehicles without any lawful reasons and cancelling the licenses of drivers, which had been prodding transporters to shut their business. They warned that if their demands were not met by June 28, the NTI would observe a strike on July 1.

The chief of NTI, Saleem Khan Bangash, said that the drivers of buses, minibuses and coaches were the target of police excesses. Traffic police officials were impounding their vehicles and cancelling their fitness certificates while the driving licenses of drivers were also being cancelled, rendering them jobless.

However, another major group of transporters — Karachi Transport Ittehad (KTI) — announced that they had nothing to do with the NTI’s call for strike.

The chief of KTI, Irshad Bokhari, while talking to Dawn said, “The police have been doing a good job by forcing the transporters to make a separate partition for women in their buses, minibuses and buses. We support traffic police in this regard and this is not an issue to observe a strike.”

He said that some officials of the traffic police had been involved in harassing drivers of commercial vehicles on the pretext of emitting-smoke and allegedly receiving illegal gratification. “We have pointed out three such officials of traffic Zone-1, and the SSP concerned suspended those officials,” Mr Bokhari said.

DIG Traffic Yameen Khan said, “We have impounded almost 2,500 buses, minibuses, and coaches for violating the condition of separate women’s compartment. The vehicles have been released after issuing tokens.” However, the fitness certificates of such vehicles were suspended.