KHANEWAL, July 18: Rushing cattle herds on arteries and thoroughfares have become a major obstacle to vehicular traffic flow as nomadic families shepherd them from one place to another and the traffic managers seem least bothered to keep them off.

That the law enforcers on roads don’t bother to prevent the cattle movement is mainly because there is no law to check such a practice and the shepherds lack a vision to apprehend any casualty.

Many highways passing through Khanewal serve as passages to camels, goats and buffalos whose movement cause traffic congestion and put the lives of motorists at risk. However on much busy remain Khanewal-Kabirwala Road, Kabirwala-Jhang Road, Khanewal-Jahanian Road (GT Road), Khanewal-Garhamore Road and Katchakhu-Vehari Road, the shepherds find no resistance in bringing their cattle there and letting them roam around.

“No law exists in the Motorvehicle Ordinance (MVO) to check the issue”, according to Khanewal traffic police DSP Chaudhry Sajjad Ahmad Khan who said it was the responsibility of the motorists to be watchful while driving on the main roads.

He said there were traffic signals at some points on highways that forewarned the motorists of the cattle movement.

Khanewal Highway Patrol Police DSP Mehr Noor Muhammad suggested that the provincial and national highway authorities should set up barriers along both sides of the roads. “This is the only way to clean the highways from the cattle.”

Quoting the Lahore-Islamabad motorway’s example, he said, there was no mobility of animals on the motorway because the authorities concerned had placed barriers.

“The act of bringing the cattle on thoroughfares does not entail any punishment as it is a matter of negligence,” senior lawyer Chaudhry Khalid Mahmood Basra claimed. He said there was no law or rule in the MVO to cover such an instance.

Answering a question, he said, “there should be a law prohibiting the cattle movement on thoroughfares but then who cares.”