GUJRANWALA, Aug 28: Several tractor-trolley, cart and motorcycles-rickshaw owners demonstrated in Kamoke on Tuesday to protest a ban imposed by the National Highway and Motorway Police (NH&MP) on plying slow-moving vehicles on GT Road.
The NH&MP had recently banned slow-moving vehicles from using the GT road during daytime and fined several owners of such vehicles heavily who violated the ban.
The NH&MP personnel started intercepting tractor-trolleys and carts laden with bricks, grain and other luggage and motorcycle-rickshaws on GT Road from Kamoke to Wazirabad and issued them fine tickets after the warning period lapsed.
As a result, several tractor-trolley, cart and motorcycle-rickshaw owners on Tuesday parked their vehicles on GT Road and disrupted normal traffic from Lahore to Gujranwala and chanted slogans against the NH&MP officials. They said the NH&MP personnel were making hurdles in supply of bricks and grain etc to markets and under-construction projects and thus depriving poor people of opportunities to earn livelihood.
They demanded that the ban should be withdrawn immediately otherwise they would again block the road.
The local police and NH&MP personnel reached the spot and dispersed the demonstrators. Later, the police registered cases against the protesters.
SSP Osama Mumtaz Raja, the incharge of NH&MP’s Kharian to Lahore Sector, said such owners of slow-moving vehicles had been warned in advance to refrain from plying their vehicles on GT Road during daytime as such vehicles impeded smooth traffic flow.
Raja said such owners were also directed to ply their vehicles along the road but they were instead plying their vehicles in the middle of the road and were thus violating the traffic laws.
He said that such vehicles had been allowed to travel on GT Road from 11pm to 5am to ensure unhindered traffic flow, but most of them were not availing the opportunity.
SECURITY: The Gujranwala Electric Power Company (Gepco) chief executive called on the regional police officer (RPO) at his office on Tuesday and discussed security arrangements in the aftermath of recent robberies at various Gepco installations.
Grid stations and Wapda subdivision offices in Ghakkhar, Eimenabad, Pasrur and Narowal were recently robbed one after the other.
Gepco chief Rana Muhammad Ashraf Zahid said that around six to twelve outlaws were involved in every incident and they took away electric transformers, conductors, meters and other equipment after loading them on vehicles. The robbers also snatched cash and valuables from Gepco officials and their families residing at grid stations.
RPO Saud Aziz informed the Gepco chief that sketches of at least three criminals had already been issued while security had been beefed up in and around all grid stations and company’s subdivision offices throughout the Gujranwala division.
HEARING: The judge of the Anti-Terrorism Court No-I on Tuesday accepted for regular hearing an acquittal petition filed by former SHO and inspector Zulfikar Ali Virk, the main accused of Sialkot Jail shootout, and adjourned proceedings till August 30.
As many as five culprits incarcerated in Sialkot Jail had taken hostage several captives and a team of judges headed by the district and sessions judge, who were on a routine visit to the jail, and at least four civil judges and five criminals were killed in the ensuing shootout when police stormed the jail to liberate the hostages around 4 years ago. The police was later held responsible for the ill-planned operation in which lives of the hostage civil judges could not be secured.
Virk moved the court under Section 265-K of the CrPC and said he took part in the operation under the directives of his seniors and that he was innocent.
Virk had fled after the Sialkot police arrested him and was declared absconder. Later, he surrendered and the court granted him interim bail till August 30.