KARACHI, Dec 6: Countless people in public and private transport means were faced with severe hardship in reaching their destinations as they remained trapped in traffic jams in the downtown areas on Wednesday for hours. The problem was caused by the closure of certain roads to provide security to President Pervez Musharraf.

Police and other law-enforcement agencies had blocked Club Road and part of Dr Ziauddin Ahmed Road to keep them cleared before the president’s arrival at the Chief Minister’s House to address a women convention. The closure in peak evening hours created traffic chaos as people in large numbers left their offices at around 5pm.

A traffic mess was witnessed on Metropole, Fountain, Sarwar Shaheed Road, Arts Council, and Shaheen Complex intersections. Quite a large number of vehicles remained stuck for hours.

The impact of the clogging was also felt on Abdullah Haroon Road, Zaibunnisa Street, Sharea Faisal, and M. A. Jinnah Road and the traffic police appeared helpless in clearing the thoroughfares. Many desperate motorists turned towards narrow streets to get out of the mess but only to aggravate the situation.

The I. I. Chundrigar Road was also flooded with vehicles while a heavy load of traffic was witnessed on Sharea Faisal where vehicles moved bumper-to-bumper.

Just one or two constables were seen trying to regulate traffic at each intersection, though in vain as several vehicles were ploughed into each other. Drivers of cars and motorcyclists, especially those of commercial vehicles, did not show tolerance and put their vehicles wherever they found some clear space to get out of the traffic jam and this worsened the situation. Drivers of minibuses and coaches were seen violating traffic signals openly and the traffic police personnel kept on watching them helplessly.

Long queues were seen along the dual carriageway of M. A. Jinnah Road which, indeed, is a wide road, was bunged up with vehicles of all kind. Traffic police personnel at each traffic signal were regulating traffic manually after switching off the signal lights. This slowed down the traffic movement and made it even difficult for the police to clear the mess.

Traffic jams also occurred in Liaquatabad as the vehicles coming from Karimabad side remained stuck in a queue right from the Dak Khana intersection up to the Liaquatabad flyover in the afternoon.

Similarly, the traffic coming from Teen Hatti side was also moved at a snail’s pace. The flow of traffic was badly affected on M. A. Jinnah Road from Numaish intersection up to Merewether Tower while a similar congestion was witnessed in Clifton, Tariq Road, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Shershah, Gulbai, etc.