Out on the streets: Qingqi rickshaw drivers protest against unnecessary challans

Say government is adding to their worries as their economic condition is already bad

LAHORE: More than 200 qingqi rickshaw drivers staged a protest against alleged unnecessary challans by Lahore Transport Company (LTC), which is a public bus service, near Qazalbash Chowk on Saturday.

They chanted slogans against LTC against their harassment and demanded the government provide them protection and alternate jobs.

Arfan Ali, an organiser of Punjab Rickshaw Union, while talking to The Express Tribune said that the force was issuing unnecessary challans to the qingqi rickshaw drivers. He added that it caused a great trouble to the rickshaw drivers as their economic condition was already bad. “Our children would often go to bed without food almost every other day.”

Ali said when they asked the LTC officials about the logic behind these challans, they said that they had received orders from top officials. “The top officials have given them a lot bigger targets but they were not taking that much stern action against them.”



The LTC buses were the part of Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT) Project, Ali said. He added that according to their information, the government was taking action against them to show that public was using buses affiliated with OLMT. “When the train starts, the public would have no other option but to travel by them. They were taking action against them to make their project successful.”

Ali said that senior police officers had also reached the protest site and told rickshaw drivers that the Lahore High Court had already issued orders to eliminate qingqi rickshaws in the city.

He added that the government should provide them alternate jobs and businesses before implementing a ban on them. He said that hundreds of thousands of families’ survival was dependent on qingqi rickshaws, therefore, the government must not take any action that may affect lives of thousands of people.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 17^th, 2017.