FAISALABAD – The city government, as a part of its plan to expand roads, has approved a landmark project to relieve the massive traffic jams at Abdullahpur Chowk and the surrounding areas. The project includes construction of three underpasses beneath Tariqa bad overhead bridge leading to Chak Jhumra Road at a cost of Rs 1.25 billion which will be completed in eight months.
The underpasses project is a part of the continued campaign by the city government under DCO Nasim Sadiq to ensure smooth flow of traffic in different parts of the city. Cleanup operations have been launched at Jhang Road, University Road, Canal Road, Sargodha Raod and Allied Hospital for road expansion.
The Abdullahpur Chowk plan also includes the construction of underpasses at the zero point of the chowk that will lead the incoming traffic from Canal Road towards Samundary Road without interrupting the free flow between Tariqabad and the main Jarranwala Road. For that purpose, the DCO’s team demolished the van stands at the Canal Road as the area will be used for the west side of the underpass.
It is also planned to undertake a cleanup operation to remove encroachments on the front side of Government Commerce College. Cleaning up at the both sides of Jarranwala Road is a part of the expansion plan in the area located immediately next to Abdullahpur Chowk. A number of shops and commercial business at both the sides of the road can be bulldozed in this regard.
Once these three underpasses are completed, the mad traffic jams at the Chowk will vanish. Presently, the public using Abdullahpur Chowk for their daily trip to workplaces is wasting a lot of time waiting in queues. It is so terrible that traffic wardens have to switch off signals to control the traffic manually. A five-minute trip sometimes takes you half an hour or more due to the rush.
The multi-phased Abdullahpur Chowk plan also featured an underpass from the railway station to the Tariqabad overhead bridge. For this purpose, the road of Tariqabad Dispensary will be widened to give way to the underpass. This will enable the incoming traffic from the Railway Station to approach Chak Jhumra Raod through the new underpass without going to the overhead bridge and the Abdullahpur Chowk.
The citizens say that this is a revolutionary project that should have been started much earlier as the traffic problems of the area have become horrible. Woman gang-raped by ex-husband, accomplices: A woman who left her husband over his conversion to Christianity was kidnapped and raped by him and his five accomplices for many days.
Manzooran Bibi, a resident of Rana Park, Mansoorabad, reported to the Civil Lines police that she married Faryad Ali, a Christian, some time back after he embraced Islam. After some time, her husband returned to Christianity and started pressurising her to convert to Christianity but she refused and left him, the woman said. She alleged that on January 11, 2011, Faryad asked her to come to Allied Hospital.
As she reached there, he abducted her and took her in a hospital ambulance to a house where she was gang-raped by Faryad, Billa Khan, Kali, Zaman, Babar Ali and Tariq repeatedly for many days. The police were reluctant to register a case, but SHO Civil Lines Mian Abid had to book the accused after he was censured by his superiors and arrested accused Zaman who is under interrogation.
