Right of way: ‘Remove Jail Road barricades’

PPP leader says clear passage blocked for past five years

HARIPUR: Ijaz Durrani, a Pakistan Peoples Party leader and former Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa caretaker minister, has threatened the Haripur district administration with protests and legal action if the years-old traffic barricades and signal jammers placed along Jail Road are not removed within a week.

Durrani, who rejoined the PPP last week after a two-decade split, made the announcement on Saturday while addressing a news conference in Haripur.

For the past five years, the district government has barricaded a 200-metre strip on Jail Road from the roundabout near the Wapda office to the Swat intersection near Hattar Road, said Durrani. Neither traffic nor pedestrians are allowed to use the strip, which runs along Haripur Central Jail.

Because of the blockade, residents of local neighbourhoods as well as people coming to Haripur city from areas such as Taxila and Khanpur, and people travelling to Taxila, Hattar Industrial Estate and Rawalpindi have been forced to use Railway Road, which used to be a one-way street for heavy vehicles. Traffic jams and long queues have become a common sight on that route now, said the former minister.

He added that even though the district administration built an unpaved road east off main Jail Road to facilitate smaller vehicles and residents of Afzalabad, Jehangirabad and Pathan Colony, the route has become troublesome. Since the narrow road passes through high populated areas of old and new Afzalabad, traffic gets choked especially during school and rush hours. “Although the Supreme Court has ordered that barricades be removed from Islamabad, they continue to exist in Haripur causing problems for the public,” he said.

Security jammers

To prevent the use of cell phones at the jail, the prison administration has installed high-frequency jammers which end up disrupting cellular services. Durrani said that some mobile networks are completely blocked within half-a-kilometre of the jail, while other networks have poor signals and audio quality.

Local communities, especially business owners, are the most affected by these jammers, claimed Durrani.

Durrani said cell service jammers and road barricades are a violation of the citizens’ rights. He added that keeping inmates in highly populated areas is unwise and if there are any high-profile prisoners in Haripur, they should be shifted to the high-security Mardan Jail, which was purpose-built for notorious criminals.

The former minister urged the district administration to remove the Jail Road barricades and limit the reach of the jammers to the jail within seven days or the PPP would convene an all parties conference to make plans for a protest and even approach the high court to secure citizens’ rights.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 10^th, 2017.