The Prime Minister’s appearance before the apex court on Monday to face contempt of court charges caused the worst traffic jam in the Federal Capital, creating inconvenience for the people. All majors roads of the city leading to the apex court were closed Monday morning and only authorised vehicles were allowed to enter the red zone. With freezing cold temperature and drizzling, the government employees reached their workplace quite late, as the security personnel took considerable time in checking vehicles. Crowds of people could be seen arguing with the riot police to enter the red zone. While, many people after going through strict security had to go their offices on-foot amid the rain. The extra ordinary checking and diversion of traffic badly disturbed the office going people and other individuals.
Long queues of vehicles were witnessed at Agha Khan Road, Khayaban-e-Suhrawardy and Radio Pakistan Chowk. Due to checking of vehicles, Radio Pakistan intersection remained block for more than one hour. While traffic remained disturbed in various roads from 8:00am till the Prime Minster left the court. At police pickets, established at Faisal Avenue, Kashmir Highway and Murree road, motorists had to switch off their vehicles for more than an one hour.
“I have no idea why government closed all roads leading to constitution Avenue where a number of government offices are located. Police should enhance its intelligence capability instead of relying on road blocking,” said Nazir Iqbal who was stuck in traffic in front of NADRA office. Another perturbed citizen Mahtab Khan said that government should have announced a public holiday on Monday to save time and energy. It is relevant to note here that employees of Foreign Office, Radio Pakistan, Pakistan Science Foundation (PSF), Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Pakistan Television (PTV), Prime Minister Secretariat, President House (Awan-e-Sadar), Pak Secretariat, National Library of Pakistan (NLP) and Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP), were most perturbed due to extra ‘security’ in the red zone.
Another citizen, Ali Arshad, said, “Supreme Court building is next to PM Secretariat and PM used to attend assembly sessions without any extra security but I fail to understand why stringent security measures have been taken today, which are creating tremendous problems for the people,” he said. Hundreds of personnel of ICT police officals, Frontier Constabulary and Paramilitary forces were deployed on various roads of Islamabad to guard the city.
They barricaded all the important roads, including the Constitution Avenue, Margalla Road, Zero Point Road and Radio Pakistan intersection. The snarl-ups were also seen on Club Road, Islamabad Highway, Ataturk Avenue and the Kashmir Highway. People coming from Rawalpindi to Islamabad to go to the Secretariat had to use Kashmir Highway for reaching their destination after going to Jinnah Avenue via 7th avenue or using Daman-e-Koh intersection and Margalla road.
