PESHAWAR: Keeping in view the hurdles in smooth flow of traffic in the Peshawar city, the district administration has announced to launch a massive anti-encroachment drive from Thursday (today).

A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting held with Town-I Nazim Zahid Nadeem in the chair on Wednesday, according to a statement.

Officials of all relevant departments attended the meeting and agreed to remove the encroachments with heavy machinery at all costs to ensure smooth flow of traffic and facilitate movement of women in different busy bazaars.

It was stated that those resisting the operation would be arrested and booked under the relevant laws and heavy fines would be imposed on them.

The relevant officials were assigned duties to arrange banners inscribed with warnings so that the people themselves would remove the encroachments.

Besides, the traders were asked to extend full cooperation to the administration and remove the mini-shops, kiosks, pushcarts from outside of their workplaces, footpaths, otherwise the demolition team would take the action.

It was stated that the relevant authorities, including the commissioner, deputy commissioner and capital city police officer, had already been apprised of the proposed operation to seek their cooperation in case of any untoward incident.

The anti-encroachment staff has been directed to avoid damaging properties of people intentionally and focus attention only on removal of the illegal structures.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2018