As the death toll resulting from accidents keeps rising on the Indus Highway (N55), the district administration of Jamshoro has requested the provincial government to hand over its charge to the motorway police.
According to official figures, 16 people were killed and 30 others injured in about a dozen road accidents on the highway in the first five months of the current year. Unofficial figures, meanwhile, put the total deaths at 31 and the number of injured at 87 for the same period of time. The two-lane narrow highway, which passes between River Indus and the Khirthar mountains, has sharp curves and steep slopes.
Although the N55 is 1,264 kilometers long - starting from Kotri town in Jamshoro and ending in Peshawar - most of these accidents occurred on the 136-kilometre-long stretch between Jamshoro and its Sehwan tehsil. “I have written a letter to the Sindh chief secretary to deploy motorway police along this piece of the highway to minimise accidents and curb traffic violations,” said Jamshoro deputy commissioner Sajid Jamal Abro.
The DC explained that the disparity between official and unofficial records of the deaths and accidents was based on the fact that people did not report all the accidents.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 11th, 2013.
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