With less than three weeks to go for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)’s announced ‘million-man’ march, the ground situation at Islamabad’s D-Chowk suggests that it will be impossible to hold a public rally at Pakistan’s so called “Tahrir Square” on August 14.
With the road network for Metro Bus project for the twin cities being laid out, D-Chowk has turned into a site of deep ditches, beams and iron rods installed for reinforcement and drainage purposes. There are ditches as deep as six meters near D-Chowk and as the monsoon rains approach, there is every possibility that these ditches will be filled with water, Pakistan Today observed.
Site manager of Limark-Reliable, a Turkish company involved in the construction of Metro Bus route, told Pakistan Today that according to the initial plan, there are still five months to go till the Metro Bus road network is completed and there are no special instructions from the authorities concerned to speed up or delay the work.
“We are working per schedule,” said the manager, adding that work on the project will be halted next week as labourers and other staff will proceed to their hometowns for a one-week leave for Eidul Fitr.
Talking to Pakistan Today, a NESPAK engineer present on the site said that the section of road between D-Chowk and China Chowk is the fifth batch of the project and it will take at least four months before road in this section is completed. “Until then, it will be all beams, bricks and iron,” he said.
The road for the Metro Bus between D-Chowk and the Federal Secretariat is also under construction and it does not seem possible that a public rally can be organised there by August 14.
Embassy Road leading to D-Chowk is a narrow road and cannot cater to the “one million people” expected to march towards D-Chowk, nor can arrangements for such a large public rally be made there.
Pakistan Today repeatedly tried to contact PTI Central Information Secretary Shireen Mazari to seek the party’s comment on the situation at the site of their announced gathering but she did not respond to phone calls and text messages.
