Rally brings City to a standstill for hours

LAHORE

A protest rally organised by religious groups as well as closure of two main arteries in view of security concerns led to an unprecedented traffic mess in the City on Wednesday.

Metro bus service was also suspended whole day. Hundreds of vehicles remained stuck for several hours in the traffic mess.

The situation started worsening when the traffic police closed the road from Ferdous Market to Centre Point and from Sadique Trade Cnter to Kalma Chowk for traffic under security measures.

The worst traffic jam was witnessed on Ferozepur Road and Jail Road where a large number of cars were seen lining up in queues.

Similarly, severe traffic mess was observed from Chowk Qartaba to The Mall. A long queue of vehicles was seen stuck in the traffic jam. Traffic police were completely unsuccessful in maintaining the flow of the traffic and people were forced to travel through other roads because of the traffic clogging on the road.

The huge traffic jams also became a reason of more fuel consumption that aggravated the anger and frustration of people on the road.

The closure of Gulberg Main Boulevard aggravated the situation.

The traffic authorities, who were busy diverting the traffic to alternative routes from the blocked roads, could not provide any relief to the commuters.

The situation caused a massive traffic mess on Ferozepur Road, Jail Road, Lytton Road, Bahawal Sher Road, Kutchery Road, The Mall and Anarkali.

Police further blocked Anrakali and Neela Gumbad for traffic by placing containers. Several motorists tried to use smaller arteries and streets of the residential areas but they got trapped in the bumper-to-bumper traffic as they were already jammed with hundreds of vehicles.  The key roads were blocked due to security concerns and it increased traffic pressure on other routes, said a traffic warden, adding that they did their best to divert the traffic to alternative routes but the situation turned more challenging when people left offices and a large number of vehicles clogged the roads.

Meanwhile, over 3,000 police officials performed duty to maintain law and order in the provincial metropolis. Eight SPs, 40 DSPs and 87 SHOs were deployed to maintain law and order during the protest rally. Similarly, two SPs, 10 DSPs, 24 inspectors and 1,600 traffic wardens were deployed to regulate the traffic.