Residents demand link road to Hazara Expressway

MANSEHRA: The residents of various localities took to the streets on Sunday and suspended work on Hazara Expressway, demanding construction of a link road with the strategically important artery.

The protesters blocked the under-construction Hazara Expressway in Mungan Muchipol area, forcing the workers and labourers to suspend work on the project for several hours.

The protesters were raising slogans in support of their demand and against NHA which, according to them, changed master plan of the project. “If NHA doesn’t link a widely stretched population with Hazara Expressway through a road, we will halt work and also block Karakoram Highway for an indefinite period,” stated Shafaqat Awan, a former tehsil councillor.

Awan said that the local population would adversely be affected if a link road was not built. He said that locals had also met the deputy commissioner and general manager NHA and apprised them about the situation on the ground, but to no avail.

“If NHA doesn’t want to build a link road, then it should construct an overhead bridge to address this issue, otherwise we and the coming generations would suffer the brunt of it,” said Awan. Speaking on occasion, former district councilor Mohammad Siddique said that people of dozens of villages and localities had rendered scarifies for the project but now their demand was being ignored.