PESHAWAR: The traffic remained clogged for several hours both in the city and cantonment areas on Tuesday, causing severe hardships to commuters and motorists.

The traffic remained jammed in the cantonment area owing to closure of a portion of Sher Shah Suri Road outside the headquarters of Frontier Constabulary. The road was closed to traffic to avert any untoward incident as recruitment process was in progress in the FC headquarters, an official said.

He said that the law enforcers could not take the risk to open the road during test and interview of the recruits because former commandant of FC Safwat Ghayur was also killed in a suicide bombing at the same venue. He said that another FC commandant Abdul Majeed Marwat was also targeted by suicide bomber few years ago on Fakhr Alam Road in Peshawar, however, he survived the attack.

An official of traffic department said that they diverted traffic at Dr Younus Chowk towards Fakhr Alam Road for going to city and general bus stand. The traffic coming from the general bus stand towards cantonment, Hayatabad, and Karkhano Market was diverted at the FC Chowk towards Saddar.

The traffic congestion in cantonment also led to traffic blockage at Khyber Bazaar where passenger vehicles kept moving at a snail’s pace. The people faced serious problems to reach their destinations.

It seemed that the traffic was diverted without any prior preparations by the officials concerned as no action was taken against the encroachers. It was observed that auto- mechanics at different workshops remained busy in their routine work on the main Sher Shah Suri and Fakhr Alam roads.

The vehicles gathered outside Government Girls Higher Secondary School Cantonment-II further worsened the situation. The traffic personnel were not available to regulate the traffic.

The mechanics were least bothered to clear the roads. The pedestrians, particularly girl students faced severe hardships owing to traffic congestion.

Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2014