Small Mall rally brings city to standstill

Tahaffuz Namoos-i-Risalat Mahaz organised rally to condemn recent suicide bombings at Sufi shrines.

LAHORE: The city’s main roads were choked with traffic for much of the working day on Monday as the Tahaffuz Namoos-i-Risalat Mahaz (Front to Protect the Holy Prophet’s (peace be upon him) Honour) staged a protest on The Mall.

Up to 500 people marched in the Tahaffuz Mazarat Aulia (Protection of Saints’ Shrines) rally starting at Data Darbar around 11am to condemn recent suicide bombings at Sufi shrines in Lahore, Karachi and Pakpattan. The rally passed through Lower Mall and GPO Chowk and culminated with a sit-in outside Chief Minister’s Secretariat at around 5:45pm.

Police blocked roads leading to The Mall and diverted traffic elsewhere, resulting in major traffic jams at Jail Road, Anarkali, Race Course Road, Civil Secretariat, Data Darbar, Bilal Ganj, Mozang, Ghari Shahu, Davis Road and Zahoor Elahi Road.

“Whenever you block The Mall, the rest of the roads in the city will be heavily impacted,” Chief Traffic Officer (CTO) Captain Syed Ahmed Mobin told The Express Tribune. He said the traffic police had deployed an extra 200 wardens on The Mall to implement the traffic plan.

He said that the side roads around The Mall had low capacity and the traffic during school-closing time easily exceeded that capacity. He said that order was restored within an hour of the end of the protest.

SP Faisal Gulzar said police had not stopped the rally because the government had not imposed Section 144, meaning the gathering was lawful.

A city government official said that Section 144 was usually invoked to stop rallies when there was a risk of violence and vandalism. In this case, they feared that imposing Section 144 would be counterproductive and provoke more protests. Instead, the city government preferred dialogue with the protesting group, he said. This was little consolation to commuters, many of whom spent hours stuck in traffic. At 2pm, drivers stuck in a particularly lengthy jam on Davis Road switched off their cars, stepped out onto the road and began remonstrating with police officials. “The maulvis have stopped the traffic with their sit-in,” explained one policeman at the intersection of The Mall and Davis Road.

“This is madness. We are trapped,” said Sadia, a National College of Arts student who was stuck on Davis Road. “It’s as if the government is saying, “We don’t really care about where you have to go and be, just stay in one place because this group wants to protest.’”

A rickshaw driver tried to get out of the jam by lifting his vehicle onto a greenbelt and getting onto the other side of the road. “Do they expect me to stay here the whole day?” he said.

“We did not want to hurt anyone’s daily routine by blocking the traffic,” said Muhammad Ziaul Haq of Jamia Naeemia. “We are only trying to fight terrorism democratically in this country.”

The district coordination officer (DCO) and Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif agreed to meet with the protestors on Wednesday, but Haq was sceptical that it would be fruitful. He said DCO Ahad Cheema and CM Sharif had told them earlier that they did not want to talk, but acquiesced because of the sit-in.

He said that at the previous meeting, the chief minister had not appeared to be serious about dealing with terrorism. Sharif had also set up a council under Zulfiqar Khosa to deal with terrorism, but it made no impact, he said.

Sources in the city government said that the chief minister had told the group to make a small committee and discuss the issue with Law Minister Rana Sanaullah.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2010.