PESHAWAR, Sept 25: Fences erected on both sides of the Islamabad-Peshawar section of the motorway (M-I) have disappeared, sources said. They said that fences erected on the 18-km portion of the under-construction motorway between Rashaki and Mardan were stolen by some people, causing a loss of about Rs20 million.

Resident Engineer-III of the motorway project, however, expressed ignorance about the theft, saying that nothing had happened. But General Manager M-I at Burhan Mr Mujeeb Qadir, when approached, said that the fences had been stolen from a portion of the under-construction multi-billion-rupee project. An FIR has been registered against unidentified persons.

He said that the contractor was responsible for the fences because the National Highway Authority (NHA) had yet to take over the Rashaki-Mardan section of the motorway.

Work on the 44-km-long Rashaki-Mardan section of the Islamabad-Peshawar motorway is near completion and a soft opening ceremony of the highway had taken place recently.

The sources said that the resident engineer-III was informed about the disappearance of the fences, but he failed to initiate any action against the culprits.

The total cost of the Islamabad-Peshawar motorway was Rs16 billion, according to PC-I of the project, and its date of completion was cited as December 2007.

The sources said that work on the last section of the motorway - Charsadda Enterchange to Peshawar Ring Road - was going on slowly. However, the GM claimed that the project would be completed within the stipulated time-frame.