KOHAT, Feb 22: Closure of the Kohat Tunnel for long intervals during the past one month has resulted in the worst traffic jams, despite the presence of a large number of security personnel in the area, making it a bane of commuters.

The people, who were facing the traffic trouble had to take alternate routes to travel via Punjab to the southern NWFP after 6pm which was causing over Rs1,000 to a vehicle as extra fuel charges.

On Wednesday night and Thursday morning, a large number of people travelling from Peshawar to the south of the province were trapped in a traffic jam in Darra Adamkhel and had to return back with difficulty at mid night.

There are no hotels in the area therefore to stay in the militant-infested area at night is full of dangers. The tunnel was closed unannounced a bit early that day because a military convoy had to pass through it in the afternoon.

Those travelling in public transport buses and hundreds of tuckers had to spend the night in Darra Adamkhel, the most insecure region these days. No Khasadar turned up to help them whereas the police could not be sent from Kohat to open the road.

The tunnel, in fact, has become victim of the war on terror like the people of the country due to vested interest. The people had got the tunnel as a boon after a long wait of 40 years. The narrow hill-track, constructed by the British in 1927, had failed to take the increasing rush of traffic and construction of the tunnel was announced in 1970 by Maulana Mufti Mahmood, the then chief minister of NWFP.

Estimates say that from 1927 to 2003, over 53,000 people died in accidents on the track. Today, comparing difficulties of the past it seems that not much has changed and the dream of safe and easy journey through the tunnel has proved just a dream.

The short sighted planners shelved the construction of a second tunnel for ten years in the hope that only one would be sufficient for the time being. Their guess proved wrong when 14,000 vehicles started passing through the tunnel in 24 hours in a span of just three years creating problems of suffocation inside the tunnel.

The nearly two-kilometre-long tunnel, which was damaged by militants recently, had been opened for one-way traffic as engineers were repairing it for the last ten days and is closed for public traffic during the movement of military convoys due to security reasons.

The tunnel, which was constructed to get rid of the tiresome and dangerous journey through the 11-kilometer-long hilly track, has become a bane for the people who thought the modern tunnel was a blessing in disguise.

It is regretted that the federal interior ministry had told the local government before the military operation to make foolproof arrangements for the safety of the strategic tunnel, cost Rs5.6 billion to the exchequer. Last year the district coordination officer was appointed as the focal person, the army and other security forces were put at his disposal to make sufficient arrangements for its safety. However, the local government failed to protect the tunnel.