The Khanna impasse

Khanna Bridge has become impassable and it is a fit case of shirking responsibility by the Capital Development Authority (CDA). It took too long when this bridge was built and the people of the area had suffered for over two years on this account as they had to take detours to go about their daily chorus.

Now that the bridge is built, one of its loops has been left unfinished because a police office came in its way. The office is standing on green belt which in itself is an encroachment and should not have been there at the first place.

Now no one is ready to remove it and the contractor is unable to complete construction of the loop that, hence, ends at the building of the police office.

For hundreds of commuters who are led into this trap on a daily basis, it looks like the head of the snake, the main source of their miseries. To boot, fruit and vegetable vendors have occupied almost the whole of the bridge. Stationing of carts on the bridge is unthinkable. They already have crammed the area under and around the bridge, which is a nuisance. Road blocks and altercations have become a routine.

If the CDA allows a fruit and vegetable market sort of area here, it should have marked it out.

A CDA official asking not to be named told this scribe that the Road Directorate has written to the Enforcement Directorate to remove the police office from the green belt but the latter is helpless.

Nowadays, the CDA is on a drive to remove encroachments from different parts of the city and they need police backup in all these operations. People think that the police are exploiting this situation to prolong existence of this illegal structure causing inconvenience to the masses.

This is not the only police office that is on green belt. Prominent among those is another police office on the next interchange - Old Airport Interchange - on the same Islamabad Expressway.

The situation gives rise to some serious questions about maintaining order in the city. The job of the police is not reduced to only law enforcement as they are also responsible for order. If they themselves become a source of disorder by encroaching upon public land, who is there to keep order in the city?

The second aspect of this sad state of affairs is that the CDA considers this area as its dirty garage. Illegal housing societies mushroom here with no care to the amenities that human beings need living there.

Those who know that Islamabad ends at Zero Point. Even the air gets hotter when you get down from Faizabad Bridge and land at Murree Road. This I have learned in the days when motorcycle was a luxury and you would enjoy driving back home in cold winter nights as journalists see the city when it is dark.

Connected to Khanna Bridge are three roads - Lehtrar Road, Sadiqabad Road and Islamabad Expressway - and all are facing the worst of mismanaging. Now is the time for the city managers to wake up to tidy up this dirty garage. — Hassan Shehzad