Traffic plan drawn for Abbottabad city fails

ABBOTTABAD:  Abbottabad city, particularly Galyat valley, witnessed heavy flow of tourists during Eid holidays and traffic remained jammed in Abbottabad for hours despite the deployment of police from other districts.

The traffic plan drawn for the Abbottabad city by the police and district administration failed due to slackness of traffic policemen. For most of the time they remained busy checking the papers of the vehicles of tourists and didn’t bother to follow the instructions of the authorities who had strongly forbidden the traffic police to check the documents of the vehicles till they violated traffic rules.

The journey from Hassanabdal, which normally takes one and an half hour, took almost six hours as vehicles from Havelian to Abbottabad were seen bumper-to-bumper and many vehicles developed faults due to heating up of their engines.

Tourists from Murree also used Karakoram Highway, which increased traffic pressure on the route. Situation in Galyat was better from the traffic point of view as Deputy Superintendent of Police of Galyat Jamil Ahmed had made functional the bypass road from Makool to Havelian. It reduced the burden on Abbottabad-Nathiagali road. Special deployment of traffic squads, police riders, with police of two districts, Torghar and Kohistan, volunteers of Galyat Development Authority, district police, Frontier Reserve Police  and helpers kept the flow of traffic smooth in entire Galyat from Bagnother up to Barian, the boundary with Murree.