PESHAWAR, July 3: The city district government on Tuesday sealed the basements of the three shopping plazas on University Road over illegal use and issued warnings to owners of many such plazas.

A team of the district government led by district coordination officer of Peshawar Javed Marwat raided plazas whose basement parking spaces were used for commercial purposes.

Assistant coordination officer Zafar Ali Shah, who was also part of the team, told Dawn that unavailability of parking spaces forced visitors to these plazas into parking vehicles along the busy road and thus, throwing traffic into chaos.

He said the deadline for plazas to make basement parking spaces available to visitors ended on July 1 and therefore, the administration proceeded against those continuing with the illegal use of these spaces.

Mr Zafar said notices had been issued to the owners of many other buildings along the University Road to stop using basement parking lots for illegal commercial activities to prevent clampdown.

Peshawar Development Authority director (building) Saleem Imtiaz Gandapur, Town-III officials, traffic cops and policemen were also present during the raids.

According to a news release issued here from the DCO office, the car parking in the basement of Silicone Centre, a plaza of computers, was sealed as owners had opened a utility store outlet there.

Similarly, the owner of Spring Night Restaurant had also shut down the basement parking space before establishing a marriage hall, while Sheraz Hotel’s basement parking lot was also used for commercial activity. All those basements were sealed.The administration’s raiding team also removed roadside venders from different roads and arrested six people for violating the law before registering FIR against them.

Owners of the said plazas couldn’t be contacted despite repeated attempts.

Meanwhile, a delegation of the residents of Faqirabad area met ACO Zafar Ali Shah and drew his attention towards presence of anti-social elements in local hostels.

The ACO said a crackdown on such hotels would be carried out soon.