Selling roads

Letter February 18, 2012
DHA had taken some measures to remove illegal road blocks and checkposts which were a source of concern.

KARACHI: Recently, your newspaper reported that the DHA had taken some measures to remove illegal road blocks and checkposts which were a source of concern for the general public.

I would like to point out that many such illegal barriers and road blocks are present in practically every neighbourhood and this causes enormous inconvenience to ordinary citizens. One such road has been encroached upon and blocked illegally by the largest oil company of Pakistan, near the Clifton Bridge.

To make matters worse, two different access routes to the area have been blocked by erecting what must be illegal barriers. The situation is complicated further by the fact that a side road and its service road are both being used by the company as a parking area for hundreds of cars of its employees. This leaves no room for people coming from Clifton Bridge to turn left towards their home. On the other side of the same road is a police station and a house of a police officer which uses part of the road as its car park.

Do I even have a right to ask, as a tax-paying citizen, that was the road built by taxpayers’ money or has the cash-starved government started selling roads to private entities and police officials? Where is the rule of law? I request the authorities to please remove illegal barriers constructed on this road which causes grave inconvenience to residents of this area.

Yasir Khan

Published in The Express Tribune, February 19th, 2012.