RAWALPINDI: In a span of 12 hours, two incidents of quarrel between citizens and traffic wardens have surfaced in the city apparently due to traffic congestion on roads.

One of the incidents involving two officials of Wasa happened a short distance from the army headquarters and the PTCL office and the other on busy Sixth Road.

A sub-engineer and a tubewell operator of Wasa, who scuffled with a traffic warden, were shifted to the police station and the agency’s high-ups approached the traffic authorities for a patch-up.

However, when the incident was brought into the knowledge of Chief Traffic Officer Beenish Fatima, she said: “I had asked the DSP traffic and DSP Cantt to investigate the issue and fix responsibility. If the traffic wardens were found guilty, departmental action will be initiated against them and if the Wasa employees were guilty, legal action will be initiated against them.”

Congestion due to encroachments, lack of parking spaces causing frequent altercations on roads

Prior to the quarrel between the two parties, a private person could be seen managing traffic at T&T Chowk on the Mall at about 8pm on Monday, a video circulating on social media showed.

Mohammad Asad, a senior traffic warden, lodged an FIR with the police stating that he was on duty at TM Chowk when he received an emergency call on wireless that some people were scuffling with a traffic assistant at GPO Chowk.

He said he rushed to the spot and found traffic assistants Bilal and Nasir Ayub being beaten by two motorcycle riders and threatening them of dire consequences.

“Nasir Ayub’s uniform shirt and trousers were torn. It caused complete blockade of traffic on TM Chowk,” the FIR said.

The reinforcement of police from Cantt police station was called and the two Wasa employees were shifted to the police station. Nasir Ayub also sustained injuries on his knee while being beaten by the two motorcycle riders.

He said the two persons were stopped for violating signals but instead of following the law they started quarrelling with the traffic assistant, beat him and tore his uniform. They were identified as Mohammad Ishtiaq and Mohammad Wasim.

Later, the two Wasa employees were arrested after the registration of a case on the charges of hurling threats and restraining the official from performing his duty.

A spokesman for the city traffic police said following the directives of CTO, SDPO Cantt, DSP traffic and in the presence of assistant director Wasa an inquiry into the incident was conducted which found the two employees of Wasa guilty, leading to registration of the case and their arrest.

Earlier in the morning, an altercation between a traffic assistant and a car rider over ‘wrong parking’ led to the registration of a case against the latter at the New Town police station.

Residents of the garrison city have never been pleased with the performance of the traffic police as the traffic situation is deteriorating day by day due to increasing number of vehicles, encroachments and lack of will on part of the officials in managing the traffic.

Massive encroachments and lack of parking spaces further aggravate the situation leading to frequent altercations among motorists, motorcyclists and encroachers.

Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2024