PESHAWAR, Oct 4: A candidate for the post of Peshawar nazim, Haji Ghulam Ali, said on Tuesday that he would clear the city of encroachments and strive to address the problem of traffic jams if he was elected.

He said at a news conference at the press club that he had launched a campaign against encroachment in 1983 as a councillor. He said unplanned and illegal construction by the land mafia had destroyed the city but he would take stern action against all those involved in the practice.

He said the city lacked any traffic system because of various interest groups but he would streamline it with the help of the traffic police and the citizens. He said that after his election he would construct underpasses to facilitate commuters and pedestrians. However, he opposed the construction of flyovers. He said he had many plans to check pollution in the provincial capital.

Mr Ali, a former city chief of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, said most parts of the Town I faced acute shortage of water as a result of wrong policies of the former administration. He said some other areas, including Kakshaal, Gulbahar and Ganj, had also been without water for many days. He complained that the city’s residents were made to pay inflated water bills.

He said the alliance between the Jamaat-i-Islami and the Awami National Party was an unnatural collusion against the liberal Islamic forces but it was heading towards defeat on Oct 6.

He said local Jamaat-i-Islami leaders used to launch campaigns against obscenity each year but they were silent this time.