I was walking by the roadside near my home in Hassan Square, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, with my father to buy some fruits. We bought some bananas and went to get strawberries from a roadside cart.

As my father was counting the money to give him, the vendor rushed his pushcart without giving us the strawberries and ran to the other side of street. Then I saw other fruit sellers also moving their pushcarts to the same part of the street.

I got scared. My father said, “Don’t be scared – just observe what is happening here.” After a while my father told me, “Did you notice a man took the fruit seller’s pushcart and other things.” Then he showed me that many people got down from a truck and began hounding up poor fruit sellers. In the chaos, a pushcart got overturned and the oranges scattered on the street. The helpless fruit seller could not succeed in collecting his all fruit. I got upset and asked father what all this was. My father explained that the city authorities were trying to clear the road for the smooth movement of traffic. I observed that many cars and a police vehicle were also awkwardly parked and were blocking part of the traffic. I asked my father as to why didn’t they remove the cars and police vehicle.

He informed me that normally it is the poor who are easy to remove – rich and powerful are not. I told my father that we must do something to help these poor fruit sellers. Then we went and talked to staff of the concerned authority and requested them to return the push carts and other belongings of fruit vendors. Surprisingly, they agreed. It made us very happy.

I went home and told the whole incident to my family.