ISLAMABAD: The PML-N government and Imran Khan and Dr Tahurul Qadri duo may insist that their respective development activity and political agitations in Islamabad are for improving the life of people, many citizens feel both have degraded life in the city instead.

Traders along the dug up metro bus route are depressed at loss to their business, office workers are annoyed at commuting troubles and schoolchildren are disturbed that police brought from outside to control the situation have occupied their schools.

Nine-year-old Sania Haroon has been avoiding her once loving father because he has turned brutish over the last few days.

A resident of Sector G-8 and student of class 4th in Islamabad College for Girls in Sector F-6, Sania can hardly understand her father is suffering from depression and is angry with everybody, most at her mother.

“My mother told me that my father has not been feeling good for almost two months,” she said. “I can’t complete my homework without his help but I shudder at approaching him.”

Her father, Haroon Khan, 45, runs a garments shop in Blue Area, which has been losing business continuously.

“It is not just me. The metro bus project of the government has upset the business of many traders like me in the Blue Area,” he said. “Construction work has made the Blue Area inaccessible and turned away our customers to other markets.”

With no customers to attend, he whiles away time at home, nursing his deepening depression.

“I try to divert my attention by watching TV but it increases my stress level by the TV channels non-stop coverage of the sit-ins of the PTI and the PAT,” Khan added.

“My doctor advised me to go to my native village for some days for a change but I cannot leave my family alone in a disturbed Islamabad,” he said.

Like Haroon, Ms Ambreen Chohan, 28, too feels disturbed. She works in the office of the Auditor General of Pakistan office. “Just to reach office and then return home is a horrendous effort for me,” she said, referring to the month-long political agitation on the Constitution Avenue where her office is situated.

Ambreen said her office remained closed for several days due to the sit-in of the PTI and the PAT. In the meantime the paper work piled up on her desk in the office.

“It seems if I am moving in Kabul while crossing police checkposts in Islamabad and I am unable to focus on my work because of stress,” Ambreen said.

She urged the government to take serious steps to remove the PTI and PAT protesters “to relieve both the resident of the capital and the protesters of their sufferings”.

“Office work suffers if government employees come on alternate days,” she told.

Nida Saleem, 12, a student of government school of G-10 said that her school is still closed as police are lodged there. “I stay at home while my siblings go to their schools which are not occupied. It is very stressful for me,” Nida explains.

There is no peace for the working women, children, the government employees and even housewives in the twin cities where roads are either dug up or occupied by agitators.

“We are unable to run business, to reach our schools and offices. Naturally the stress is causing depression,” they say.

Senior psychiatrist at Pims, Professor Rizwan Taj, agreed with this widespread feeling.

Patients complaining depression are visiting him in increasing numbers. Same is the experience of private psychiatrists.

“They are found suffering from stress, depression, anger and insomnia. The government should take some serious steps to overcome the crises,” said Prof. Taj.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2014