DADU: Activists of the Sindh United Party (SUP) blockaded vehicular traffic by putting obstacles on the Indus Highway and staged hunger strike on the road near Sann, 106km from here on Friday, in protest against Sindh government’s failure to build a double road up till Sann town.

SUP secretary general Roshan Ali Buriro said while speaking to protesters sitting in tents which they had pitched along the highway that heavy traffic on this single-track road was causing accidents every day.

He said that 200 passengers were killed and 400 were injured in accidents on this road over the past six months despite the fact that Section 144 had been imposed on plying of heavy traffic on the highway to avoid accidents. The ban, though, was never implemented, he said, adding that accidents would never stop till a double road was constructed.

Other party leaders said that many vehicles plying on the road had no route permits and the administration did not take any notice of overloaded vehicles using the single-track road.

They said the bridge constructed on Indus River at Amri town to link Bahria Town with Nawabshah diverted all heavy traffic of National Highway towards Jamshoro Indus Highway.

They said that there was no trauma centre at any place along the long stretch of highway and should an accident occur there was no arrangement for protecting lives of the seriously injured patients.

They said that National Highways Authority (NHA) officials were collecting toll tax at two places along the highway in Jamshoro district but had no interest in controlling road accidents or providing facilities to passengers.

They said that Jamshoro was perhaps the only district where toll tax was collected at two places, in Sehwan and Jamshoro. NHA officials of Sehwan-Jamshoro section of the highway were “embezzling” millions of rupees in the name of road repair but in reality they had not filled even one pothole on the road which often led to accidents, they claimed.

They said that many damaged vehicles were sitting along the highway at different places which too lead to accidents and appealed to the National Accountability Bureau and the Federal Investigation Agency to launch an inquiry against NHA officials for “irregularities and embezzlement of funds” for the road’s repair.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2017