Travellers caught in the middle

Children faint, people stranded inside, outside the airport.

ISLAMABAD:

Travellers suffered the most as they were caught in between the brawl between the police and PAT workers. It became nearly impossible for children to breathe amid the tear-gas shelling and some of them fainted.

Followers of Dr Tahirul Qadri arrived in Rawalpindi and Islamabad from various parts of the country including Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, south Punjab, Azad Jammu and Kashmir as well as from nearby districts of Jhelum, Chakwal and Attock.

All public transport was off the streets due to the strict security plan under which major arteries, especially roads leading to the airport, were blocked.

District and airport administrations had announced the provision of a shuttle service for passengers to and from the airport because of the security cordon. However, the service was not functional, which forced travellers and their families walking on foot to reach the airport. Many women who had to travel abroad were waiting at the gate of the airport for hours.

One traveller shouted at a PAT protester: “Why do you people support these leaders who are not sincere and create trouble for all of us?” An angry female protester responded, “No, it is the government [who is not sincere], not our leader. We will not leave him.”

The police began shelling again and another angry voice from the airport waiting lounge bellowed, “We earn revenues and remittances for you and this is how you are treating us. You are humiliating us.”

“Our children can’t breathe and you instead close doors at us,” a woman complained to airport security officials, who were not letting anyone outside or inside.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 24^th, 2014.