ISLAMABAD/RAWALPINDI: Violent street protests over the gas crisis created such havoc in the twin cities on Monday that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari needed helicopters to move between the two cities.

Dawn has learned that sensing trouble on the Islamabad Expressway, the security establishment decided to airlift the prime minister from Islamabad airport, where he had arrived from Lahore, to his official residence, while the PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari hadto be flown to Islamabad airport to catch a flight to Karachi.

Sindh’s Inspector General of Police Mushtaq Hussain had no such luck, however. Caught in one of the many traffic jams that the protests created in Rawalpindi, he missed his flight to Karachi.

These protests started around 11am and petered out after battling the police for eight hours.

Pleas of Regional Police Officer Mohammad Zubair and City Police Officer Azhar Hameed to crowds not to blockade the roads by burning tyres and rowdyism went unheard. Traffic was snarled all around the city, particularly on the busy arterial roads like the Benazir Bhutto Road, Airport Road and Rawal Road.

Tension heightened and the situation turned worse at the closing time of schools as worried parents jostled to pick up their children. Many took circuitous routes to reach the schools but were still frustrated in their attempts to reach their children. Ambulances were seen desperately trying to breakout of the traffic jams but their blaring sirens seldom opened a way for them, and just added to the general din.

PML-N legislators with traders on Benazir Bhutto Road organised the major protests. PML-N MNA Hanif Abbasi led one such rally at Rehmanabad in the company of MPAs Raja Muhammad Hanif Advocate, Ziaullah Shah, PML-N Women Wing’s Zebun Nisa, leader of Markazi Anjuman-i-Tajran Malik Shahid Ghafoor Paracha and his workers.

They accused the PPP-led government and SNGPL officials of deliberately creating gas crisis in Punjab. “People elected the PML-N for solving your problems, but the PPP is vilifying Punjab government by halting gas supply to the people,” they said.

PML-N was also said to be behind the rumpus on the Islamabad Expressway where the protesters clashed with the police.

Eyewitnesses said police had allowed about 300 residents, including women and children, of Dhoke Kala Khan and Shakarial to demonstrate near Zia Masjid on the Expressway. Trouble started when the police asked them to clear the Expressway for “a VVIP movement”.

Police said the crowd refused and called help, using the loudspeakers of the mosques in the area.

That made a traffic police, fearing the worst, alert the security detail of the prime minister which decided to fly him out than take the risk of road travel.

A clash soon ensued when the reinforced crowd pelted stones at the police and the passing cars.

Over a dozen policemen were injured by the stones, including the Sub-Divisional Police Officer and SHO of Shahzad Town police station.

Police detained six of the alleged attackers and registered a case under Section 780 of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

In Attock, hundreds of protesters from rural areas of Shakrdara, Sheenbagh and Sarwala blocked Attock-Kamra road for over two hours.They were chanting slogans against the government and also burnt tires besides staging sit-in on the road.

In Gujar Khan, the resident complained of low gas pressure and frequent outages of electricity. They said that the low gas pressure in most of the residential areas of the city was too low to cook food which has affected their routine life.

In the morning the school going children as well as bread winners were forced to leave their houses without breakfast.