RAWALPINDI - It was a miserable day for Pindities who witnessed a major traffic jam on almost all large and small roads after former President General (retd) Pervez Musharraf's 20-vehicle motorcade, heavily guarded by law enforcement agencies and army commandoes, left the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology (AFIC) on Monday to appear in the Special Court in Islamabad in the high treason case against him.
More than 1000 police jawans, personnel of Special Branch, Pakistan Rangers, traffic police and Elite Force equipped with latest weapons was lined up from AFIC to Koral Chowk (Islamabad Expressway) early in the morning, supervised by SSP (Operations) Muhammad Maqbool, SP Potohar Division Haroon Joya and SP Security, to ensure safe route to Musharraf.
This triggered massive traffic jams on Peshawar Road, Saddar, Mall Road, RA Bazaar Road, Benazir Bhutto Road, Katcheri, GT Road, Airport Road, Mareer Chowk, Jhanda Chichi, Scheme III, Airport Road and Gulzar-e-Quaid.
The school, college and university students, teachers, office goers, motorcyclists, commuters and commoners, who got stuck in long queues of traffic, denounced the government and other LEAs for this major inconvenience.
A large number of patients, some of them were serious, also faced a lot of trouble to reach MH and AFIC for medical treatment, as Commandoes and other LEAs did not allow them to enter inside the hospital.
Shopkeepers and passersby, who were restrained from opening their businesses, kept standing outside their markets and plazas with distressed faces. Several incidents of exchange of hot words between public and LEAs were seen in many areas.
Malik Tanveer, who was stuck in traffic with his ailing mother at Peshawar Road in his car, said that the government should avoid putting the public in trouble by blocking roads for just a single person, who is no more important.
"If Musharraf is such a very important personality then the government should bring him to court in a helicopter," he said."
"I am suffering from heart disease and came from Chakwal for several medical tests in AFIC in recent past. I have been waiting for last two hours to get permission to go inside the hospital," Kabeer Khan, 57, sitting at MH Morr, told this scribe.
As per court order, Musharraf was transported to Special court under strict security.
On the other, the trial of Mush remained talk of the town as everybody was expressing his views on the possible verdict of the court. Some termed the trial as injustice and urged the court to allow the General to go abroad to see his ailing mother. While some were of view that Musharraf should be tried so that no one in future could dare abrogate the constitution of Pakistan.
There were many other people who termed the trial as waste of time and public money just to divert public attention from core issues like drought in Thar and attacks on polio teams in Pakistan.