A day after 40 soldiers were killed in Pulwama attack on February 14, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh placed restrictions on civilian traffic on highways and other major roads owing to movement of the army convoys and other forces. The move has badly affected commuters in the valley.
The valley commuters alleged that they had a tough time to cross these major points during convoy movement as they are forced to bear the brunt and long queues of vehicles stopped by forces leading to heavy traffic jams for hours.
A local commuter while talking with Kashmir News Bureau on phone said, “Convoy movements have become a bane for local motorists, irrespective of the nature of emergencies, commuters are left in limbo for more than half an hour and at times it takes hours for this chaos to clear.”
Not only local commuters, but students are also facing hardships as school buses are delayed and arrive late due to long hour traffic jam.
A student of Islamic University said “Usually it takes me an hour to reach the University, but unfortunately on Monday it took me more than two hours and I was late for my examination as we got stuck in a long queue of vehicles stopped by forces during the movement of convoys on National Highway.”
Meanwhile, a heart-wrenching video got viral on social media in which a man was carrying the patient in his arms as the ambulance was stuck in a traffic jam near Iqbal Park due to convoy movement. (KNB)