KARACHI, July 7: Karachi Transport Ittehad has reiterated its threat to observe a comprehensive strike on July 13, against repressive measures of the traffic police and their high-handed approach to subdue transporters.

In a press release issued here on Sunday by the KTI office bearers which included Syed Irshad Hussain Bukhari, Malik Khalid Hussain Awan, Mohammad Rashid, Hashim Khan, Syed Mahmood Afridi, Jamshaid Khan, Mohammad Illyas and others, they charged that the traffic police, against all norms of justice and to reap benefits from the new system of ticketing, have recoursed to unprecedented challans of public vehicles.

Their moves are more reprehensible considering the 30 per cent incentives offered to them by higher officials on every single challan. It has opened the floodgates of corruption by the traffic police personnel in Karachi against public vehicles which would consequently result in annihilation of their transport business, they added.

They alleged that last week, a ceremony held to award Rs10.54 million to traffic police personnel for making the maximum number of challans during a seven-month period spanning from May to December, 2001, was unlawful as the amount realized from the pockets of helpless motorists and public transporters was under coercion and duress.—PPI