ISLAMABAD - Thousands of shipping containers used as obstruction to thin out protest rallies of PAT and PTI in Islamabad and major parts of Punjab are costing millions of US dollars to the national exchequer.
Each of nearly 900 containers being used alone in capital city Islamabad and Rawalpindi district is costing between $35-40 per day; thus 900 containers are making it about one million dollars a month. Also, about 1400 containers of the same size used in Punjab, especially in Lahore, heavily cost to the exchequer to the order of $1.47 million.
The interior minister has recently claimed that millions of rupees were being spent on shipping containers as part of the government’s security strategy to tackle PAT and PTI protesters.
Apart from sealing important connecting roads, the government also used the big blue boxes in roads and highways to obstruct PAT and PTI workers from joining sit-in on Constitution Avenue in front of the Parliament building.
The government claimed that massive use of containers was also part of its strategy to check and stop terrorists in the rallies in their guise as political workers of the two parties.