Visually-impaired persons’ protest brings traffic to a halt

LAHORE: A series of protests by visually-impaired citizens brought traffic on major city roads to a standstill resulting in inconvenience for the road users, including ambulances and rescue services.

The first protest was staged by visually-impaired persons in front of the Lahore Press Club for the acceptance of their demands. The protesters blocked the road due to which the flow of traffic got disrupted. Citizens of metropolitan city got stuck on Davis Road, Empress Road, Abbot Road, Garhi Shahu, Habibullah Road and other adjacent area. Flow of traffic was shifted to other busy roads.

Later, the visually-impaired persons moved towards Faisal Chowk following which the people got stuck on Mall Road, Queen’s Road and Hall Road. The flow of traffic shifted to Ferozepur Road as well.

The visually-impaired made hands chain and chanted slogans against government. They demanded jobs under special quota, regularisation of contractual staff and daily wagers.

They complained that salaries were not being paid to the daily wagers. Besides, they demanded the government provide them residents, utility allowance, guide allowance, house requisition allowance. Interestingly, Punjab Assembly session was in progress but no political leader or Member of Provincial Assembly came to talk to them.

Some of the protesters said that if their demands were not fulfilled they would set themselves on fire. They declared that if the government did not fulfill the promises made earlier and once again ignored their demands, they would expand the scope of their protest.

According to the protesters, the government gives “false assurances” but they will not allow the authorities to continue to fool them. They said they were not given suitable jobs according to their abilities.

A protester said the government needed to create jobs for them. They didn’t want to become beggars. Actually, they wanted to earn their livelihood by fair means. synopses: A meeting of Punjab University Advanced Studies and Research Board (AS&RB) here on Monday approved 37 PhD synopses and 26 evaluation reports. PU Vice Chancellor Prof Niaz Ahmed Akhtar chaired the meeting in which 35 panel of examiners, 23 extension cases and four miscellaneous cases were also approved.