Harassed commuters: Need for check posts in city reviewed

LEA officials defend barricades placed on roads leading to cantonment

PESHAWAR: Following immense pressure from the public, government officials and law-enforcement agencies (LEA) finally put their heads together to reconsider the need for numerous security check posts which are causing inconvenience to the city’s commuters. 

According to officials in the home and tribal affairs department, a meeting was held in this regard on Thursday at the department. Peshawar commissioner, deputy commissioner, director general of Peshawar Development Authority, traffic police and several law-enforcement officials attended the meeting which was chaired by Home Secretary Arbab Arif.

“People are fed up with the long queues of vehicles waiting at various check posts to be inspected by the police and other LEAs,” an official privy to the moot told The Express Tribune on Friday. “It is summer and traffic hold-ups are going from bad to worse on roads where the security forces stop and check all vehicles passing through.”

He said the meeting focused on areas where the check posts are causing hardships for travellers, including checkpoints on GT Road, barricades and check posts on University Road as well as those on Pishtakhara and Bara Road.

According to the insider, law-enforcement officials defended barricades placed on roads leading to their cantonment areas, saying the check posts have been erected as they are needed due to security concerns for army installations, and K-P Assembly and Peshawar High Court buildings.

The official said it was decided the Peshawar commissioner would hold a meeting with all stakeholders regarding checkpoints and barricades at the University of Peshawar campus and the road, and then a mechanism would be devised to resolve traffic gridlocks caused by them.

Similarly, the DC will hold a meeting with the relevant officials regarding the GT Road and Bara Road check posts.

Officials also considered removing iron barricades and replacing them with speed breakers. This is in addition to considering opening all lanes on roads entering Hayatabad. It was also decided in the meeting that the DC will work on charged parking throughout the city.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2015.