GUJRANWALA, Jan 5: A flea market on both sides of the railway track in front of Sheranwala Bagh is nothing short of a danger zone for the shopkeepers as well as customers, as none of the authorities concerned has bothered to shift the place to safer place.

A visit to the site reveals that around 500 small shops (some of which can accommodate not more than two to three customers at a time) of woolies, cloth, shoes and other consumer goods have been set up along the railway track. Hundreds of customers can be seen making bargains during the day time, ignorant of dangers for being too close to trains.

According to information made available to Dawn, many people have lost their lives after being run over by locomotives. A fire broke out in the market two years ago, leaving 400 shops gutted. The shopkeepers bore a loss of hundreds of thousands rupees.

Yet another drawback of the market is that the customers leave very little room for traffic at the Ferozewala level crossing. Traffic snarls here have become a routine.

Risking life and limb, some vendors even sit on the track and haggle with the customers without noticing the trains. —

Akram Malik