ISLAMABAD: The road closure at multiple locations including the entry and exit points of the twin cities due to the long march is not only creating nuisance for the commuters but patients, students and vendors also.
As a result of these halts, the people of twin cities have been facing hardships and remained stuck in traffic jams for hours.
Asifa Ikram, a mother of two children while talking to APP said, “We have suffered from a severe mental trauma due to the traffic blockage on Murree Road at night time while taking my son to the panel hospital in Rawalpindi in emergency”.
She said that my son was having breathing issues and we had to spend three to four hours in a traffic jam with my family. There were two ambulances with serious patients but the protestors were not ready to give passage to even those ambulances.
Shahid Aslam, another parent said, “The long march has created a negative impact on the academic performance of the students as once again the educational institutions have announced holidays which would waste the time of the students and affect their grades.”
He said, “It is difficult to abruptly switch over to the online mode of education for various educational institutions as well as the students due to poor network connections and unavailability of electronic gadgets for all the students”.
Arif Mujeeb, a government servant said that “I have to travel between the twin cities on a daily basis in order to reach my office but the suspension of public transport and closure of roads due to long march make the travel between the cities a trouble for us”.
“Due to the closure of main roads, the alternative routes are witnessing long queues of vehicles and people are stuck in rush for hours’ .
He said that the online cab services and private cabs also raised their fares and commuters are facing serious issues due to the mess created by the long march.
Rehana Parveen, a working woman, was of the view that from the last few years, the residents of the twin cities experience the life of a hostage every time.
Different political parties have made it a practice to move towards the capital city time and again, blocking main routes and holding the city block for an uncertain period of time which made life of the people of twin cities difficult.
Sabir Khan, a daily wager while sharing his views said that we use to earn our bread and butter on a daily basis. The suspension of routine life causes misery and pain for the daily wagers whose families heavily depend on their day to day earnings.
He said that these long-march, sit-ins and dharnas shut the whole commercial activities and due to the unavailability of work we are unable to fulfill the basic needs of our family.
He said that we have no idea how long these long-march will remain here and we are
worried how we will manage our day to day expenditures in this situation.
