Eid passengers rush for home

Inter-city travel fares have rocketed as Eid ul Azha is drawing near. Homebound people who had booked their seats a few days before surged onto bus terminals and railway stations yesterday.

Rawalpindi and Islamabad started wearing a deserted look as hundreds of thousands of people left for their homes to enjoy the Eid ul Azha festival holidays with their families.The surge of people onto the bus terminals, railway stations, and on board different modes of vehicles caused severe tailbacks on the city roads, mostly in areas around the rail and bus stations.

Transport workers said they were gearing up for handling the final rush of the homebound people. Rickshaw-pullers as well as wagon drivers, flying coach drivers, and taxicab drivers were having a heyday from the huge rush of the city people, mostly leaving twin cities while many of them remained busy doing their last moment shopping that will continue until the late night before the Eid day.

Traffic congestion from Faizabad to Pirwadhai bus terminal caused immense suffering to people as the nagging congestion forced many of them to go to the terminal on foot carrying their luggage. The traffic police were facing difficulties tackling the situation and many of them were apparently helpless.

Quite a few parts of Islamabad also experienced similar traffic jams. The suffering of the people mounted as the rickshaw-pullers, wagons, Suzukis, flying coaches, buses and taxicabs charged extremely high fares capitalizing on the huge rush. The nagging traffic congestion was also one of the reasons for charging high fares.

Reinforced security was marked at bus terminals. Most of the public transport vehicles were packed. The passengers started coming to the terminals at dawn to get some space for the long journey. Huge crowds were witnessed at the Railway Station.

Although many of the train passengers had collected advance tickets with great pain, people who could not collect the tickets thronged the station to head home on board the trains in collusion with the coolies who got them seats inside the compartments.

Railway counters were found selling tickets to the people who agreed to travel without reservation. Ali Imran, a Lahore-bound passenger, said, “I have bought a standing ticket at a very high rate.”

Although many inter-city trains left the station on the day. The railway authorities arranged extra coaches and attached them with all the inter-city trains to cope with the rush.The inter-district bus terminals also experienced a huge rush of homebound people and there was severe traffic congestion in areas surrounding the terminals of Soan and Pir Wadahai. The transport operators added extra buses to their regular fleets.

The passengers alleged that the bus operators were high charging fares despite the fact that the law enforcement agencies were seen patrolling the bus terminals.