JHANG, April 13: Traffic was at a complete standstill for some eight hours on Thursday on Multan-Jhang-Sargodha main highway at Riwaz bridge on the river Chenab, some 15kms from here owing to ill-trained and insufficient number of constables posted at the narrow rail-cum-road bridge.

A large number of vehicles carrying thousands of commuters remained stranded on either side of the bridge between 3pm and 11pm. About half a dozen ill-trained policemen made their desperate efforts to get the traffic restored.

Ironically, no senior police official, even of a sub-inspector rank, bothered to visit the site of the worst traffic jam although it was only a 15-minute drive from the district headquarters at Jhang.

It all started when the policemen posted at both ends of the bridge could not prevent the traffic from entering the single lane bridge from both ends simultaneously. Eventually, vehicles from both sides jammed midway inside the bridge that resulted in three to four kilometers long queue of vehicles on either side of the bridge.

The jam could only be cleared when SHO Hassan and his sizable force succeeded in persuading the drivers to follow their instructions.

This lends credence to the motion that if some senior police officials had bothered to visit the jam site earlier the traffic would have been cleared easily.

In the meantime, trains running between Sargodha and Shorkot Cantonment sections were also late by eight to 10 hours.

DPO Amjad Javed Saleemi, in the presence of media people on Friday, admonished DSP (traffic) Syed Hassan Shah for his incapacity to deal with the situation.

On his part, the DSP said that such a situation was beyond his control as he was too busy on Thursday in some other matters of urgent nature.

Upon this, the DPO asked the DSP to resign from his job if he was unable to deliver or he would write to the high-ups to take action against him.

Traffic at the Riwaz bridge, already crosses 100 years of its existence, operates with a 10-minute turn from each side.

To handle some 15,000 vehicles on the bridge every day, only a few constables have been deputed on either side, who are unable to tackle the traffic jam situation.