Beggars perturb commuters

Rawalpindi

It has been quite long since a group of beggars are seen on daily basis on GT Road starting from Sawan Bridge till Bahria Town.

This particular group contains an elderly man with white beard who holds a sticks and stands on the centre of the road coming from Bahria Town, a man with his daughter who is always on the median between the main GT Road, one female who is always crying and asking for alms. It has been three months at least that they never change their place and always pester commuters who are already sick and tired of the constant traffic jams on the road because of slow carpeting of the road.

The road is already chocked up because of multiple schools and colleges on the main road. Whenever the road is chocked because of the traffic jam, carpeting of the road or the school rush timings, they come in front of the car and ask for money.

Exploiting the situation they have ample time to ask for money and woe them to lighten their pockets. There is another traffic hazard on the same route, which is always on the u-turn are the small children who sells boiled eggs to the commuters, they stand so close to the car that the driver is always concerned of their feet while taking a u-turn. They are not afraid of the traffic, but in fact breeze through the traffic very swiftly. They bang windows and try each and every emotional blackmailing on the list to melt the hearts of the commuters and if they get the money from the commuters their expressions of distraught immediately changes to happiness, then going to the car behind they immediately change their emotions to distress and worry again.

Fateh Mohammad, one of the commuters who has the same route for office from morning till evening said that he has been witnessing these beggars from the last three months and not a single day is passed without seeing them disrupting the traffic. “When are the authorities going to take any action against them, It’s not only this road but mostly every main road has these problems, they quickly come to the commuters on the signals and stand too close to the cars and sometimes drag along the windows with the moving cars.

Zoha Khan while talking to this scribe said that one day she was shocked when a beggar hit her baby in fact on the head when he cried. “I was wondering whether this was her own baby or not. How can she inflict such cruelty on her own baby? This is highly disgusting and how can we give charity to such people who beat their own kids on the road and treat them so badly,” she said.

Ahmed Qazi said that there were child protection and welfare bureaus in Rawalpindi to provide care, rehabilitation, education and training to the destitute and neglected children. One of the objectives for the establishment of this bureau was to protect these children from criminals and poverty, to give them skill and vocational training. This institution is supposed to provide food and shelter but also imparts education and skills to these children to make them useful citizens. Where are their survey officers who don’t see these children who are wasting their life on roads by becoming beggars. If we don’t control the situation now, there would be another generation of beggars dwelling on the roads quite vulnerable to crime and accidents.