Protest of 100 teachers blocks entire Clifton

KARACHI:

All major arteries leading to Bilawal Chowrangi - from Ziauddin Hospital to the Abdullah Shah Ghazi Roundabout and from Boat Basin to Aladin Chowrangi - were sealed on Wednesday morning while a handful of traffic police personnel were deployed to divert the traffic to alternative routes.

Meanwhile, the police personnel deployed at each barricade were only asking the drivers to turn around. They had no idea where to divert the traffic as all the nearby alternative routes had also been sealed.

Hundreds of cars, motorcycles and public transport buses circled around the sealed area to find a way to their respective destinations. The ensuing confusion irked some of the drivers who blamed the police personnel for driving them about in circles. "I want to go back to my home at Do Talwar but none of these personnel know which road I should take," complained a woman, who was driving her car around Aladin Chowrangi with two schoolgirls on the rear seat. "Bibi you should take Khayaban-e-Shamsheer to get to your home," replied a police officer from Darakhshan police station. The woman went and returned after a few minutes because she had failed to find a way to Khayaban-e-Shamsher. The police official then told her to take Sea View road.

"We are standing here since morning without any food and water, facing angry people," the police official told The Express Tribune. "Every driver knows that the road is closed. We have announced the closure on TV and radio but they are still trying to get in," he added, pointing at a man who suddenly accelerated his car, hurling dust and pebbles at the police official, apparently out of anger for being asked to turn around. Some desperate car owners even advised the police to baton-charge the protesters and open the roads.

The traffic police personnel were accusing the local police of blocking the roads and causing traffic problems. "I don't exactly know which road is sealed and which is open but this protest could have easily been controlled by less than 50 policemen," said Ali Shah, a traffic police official, who was deployed on Shahrah-e-Firdousi near Park Towers.

Traffic SSP Tanveer Odho told The Express Tribune that they had deployed 30 personnel to manage the traffic. "We have managed to control the traffic jam after much difficulty," he said, adding that the problem had started in the morning after the roads were sealed.

"We diverted the traffic onto Sea View road and through Khayaban-e-Shamsheer," he said, adding that the government did not want to use force to revert the protest which is why the roads were sealed.

The spokesperson for Bilawal House, Eijaz Durrani, said that they had not ordered the police to barricade the roads. The law enforcers had taken preventive measures on their own to avert any untoward incidents. "There is democracy and we will welcome peaceful demonstrations but no one can allow people to become violent," he said, adding there was no need for such kind of demonstration as government had already assured the protesting teachers that their jobs would be restored on merit.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 8^th, 2014.