Activists march for RCD Highway upgrade

In a bid to draw the attention of the federal and Balochsitan governments and the National Highway Authority towards traffic accidents on the Karachi-Quetta National Highway, a group of young students started a march on foot from the Karachi Press Club towards Quetta on Thursday.

Najeeb Zehri, a student belonging to the Khuzdar district, was leading the march. He said the number of deaths from accidents on the highway was increasing and it was becoming a norm in Balochistan. Zehri, a former student of the Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering and Management Sciences, said that he also got injured in an accident on the highway because of which he could not continue his education.

“More people have died in accidents on the 813 kilometre-long Karachi-Quetta National Highway, also known as RCD Highway, than people killed in terrorist attacks in the province,” he told The News.

Citing media reports, he said thousands of people had been killed and injured in road accidents on the “killer highway”. He said a single-lane highway from Karachi to Quetta was nothing less than a death trap and overloaded buses could not turn in high-speed when another bus was about to cross them.