In bid for attention, protesters hang Khursheed Shah’s effigy from bridge

Activists want Sindh govt to repair University Road as soon as possible

KARACHI: If you happened to drive through one of the city's main arteries, University Road, on Friday evening, you may have come across an effigy of the Pakistan Peoples Party's Khursheed Shah hanging over the pedestrian bridge in front of Karachi university's Silver Jubilee gate.

Next to the effigy, a banner tied to the pedestrian bridge read 'Respected Khursheed Shah Sahab please check the quality of University Road'. After launching several cleanliness campaigns, #FixIt campaigner Alamgir Khan's next target is the immediate repair of University Road, which, after several empty promises and unmet deadlines by the Sindh government, has failed to be reconstructed.



Scores of youngsters accompanied Khan when he came out on University Road holding placards against the provincial government for not being able to repair one of the city's main arteries despite the passage of several deadlines. The placards read, 'Koi Sharam Hoti Hai, Koi Haya Hoti Hai (have some shame) and 'Humara Tax, Humara Road [our tax, our road]'.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, Khan said that the purpose of their recent campaign was to bring attention to University Road, which needs immediate repair. He said that the former administrator of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), Laeeq Ahmed, promised him that the repair work on University Road would kick off from June but it has yet to start.

The Sindh government, he pointed out, allocated Rs10 billion for different flyovers and underpasses in the city and Rs1.2 billion were allocated for the repair and construction of roads and upgradation of hospitals, of which Rs5.5 million was allocated for University Road.

On a question regarding why he was hanging [opposition leader in the National Assembly] Khursheed Shah's effigy over the pedestrian bridge as he is not related to the Sindh government, he said that recently a video of Shah was circulated on social media in which he was telling off an engineer for using poor quality material in the construction of a road in rural Sindh.

"We want to draw his attention towards the construction of this road," he said, adding that in rural Sindh Khursheed Shah was angry over the poor quality of material used for the construction of a road but in Karachi they barely have a road.

Khan warned the Sindh government that if action is not taken for the refurbishing of University Road within 24 hours, they will establish hunger strike camps on the road for three days and would hang an effigy of Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on all the pedestrian bridges from Safoora Chowrangi till Jail Road.



He pointed out that apart from the poor condition of the road, there are about 180 illegal carts and hawkers on University Road, from whom the police extort Rs50 each daily. The sewers on University Road, according to him, are also completely broken down or choked.

KMC to start work by Nov

KMC's superintendent engineer Sami Khan told The Express Tribune in August that if all goes well the construction of University Road will start by October. For now, KMC's technical director-general Niaz Soomro assured that by the first week of November, the construction work will kick off.

Soomro said that they received funds via Karachi Mega Projects three months ago and the tendering process took time for them to start construction work.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 15^th, 2016.