LAHORE, Dec 28: Bewailing the assassination of a Bhutto family’s scion, the provincial capital saw a complete shutter-down strike with the wheel of transportation crashing to a halt on Friday.
It was a day of untold inconvenience for the people who didn’t find even essentials like medicines and eatables almost the whole day through.
All markets, trade centres, restaurants, medical stores and pharmacies and even grocery outlets remained closed. So did the filling stations most of which had barriers around them primarily to avoid the turbulent reaction to the Rawalpindi tragedy. Unavailability of petrol and gas forced the private transport off the road and created problems for patients and the indisposed.
The medical stores and pharmacies outside the Mayo, Services, Jinnah, General and Sir Ganga Ram hospitals had their shutters down during the day time. The situation eased a bit by the evening.
A doctor of SGRH informed Dawn that around 400 patients visited the emergency daily, but on Friday a few dozen patients (in a very serious condition) were brought there.
“I called a relative from Bhati Gate to take my wife, who complained of cardiac complications, to hospital as I failed to find public transport,” the doctor quoted Nafees Ahmad of Shahdara Town as saying.
Nafees said: “All members of my family are mourning the death of Benazir Bhutto, but we have come out in fear. Thanks God we have safely reached the hospital and the condition of my wife is stable now.”
Unavailability of medicines created problems particularly for the hospitalised patients. A Ganga Ram Hospital doctor, however, claimed that the pharmacies in hospitals usually met the needs of their patients. The situation, according to him, would improve in a day or two.
Most of the private clinics and hospitals too remained closed. “I can’t take risk of opening my clinic as the public emotions are running high over the demise of a leader of high stature,” Dr Mohammad Amir of Walled City said.
That the people suffered for not getting the eatables and other necessary items was evident from the closure of shops dealing in day-to-day merchandise. Grocery stores, vegetable shops and ‘tandoors’ in most parts of the city were not working. Some grocers and vegetable vendors at Shadbagh, Misri Shah, Dharampura and Harbanspura complained that some PPP activists of their areas had asked them not to open outlets and observe mourning.
Also distasteful was the shortage of milk in the city as milkmen could not supply the product because of transportation problems. The packed milk too was not available. —Zulqernain Tahir