In a city of unending crises, a new phenomenon of howling motorcades of VVIPs, rushing through busy streets and narrow lanes, showing little regard to traffic lights, and no respect to pedestrians, needs some restraints.
In its nascent stages this indecent act was restricted to cavalcades of the President or the Prime Minister, and, at worst, the movements of governor and chief minister were there to affect the people at large. This much inconvenience was tolerable.
In the recent days even minions of the provincial government have started to take undue advantage of this facility available to them by virtue of their postings in administrative units of the provincial government.
Though the traffic does not stop to make room for the mini cavalcades carrying a BPS-18 civilian officer sporting a crown on his shoulders but the yelling subordinates in following vans makes the difference. At times they spit in the air, which drizzles and deposits on the windscreens of other cars, or take out green chewed stuff kept in between the gums and the lower lips and toss it in the air unmindful of its effect on others.
The senior officers, in uniform, remain unconcerned about this kind of nuisance to the people and have perhaps never tried to discipline their staff.
The teeming ministers and advisers are over-conscious of their security measures and it seems that they are afraid of their own people. While coming to office or going back to their homes they try to find safe passage on crowded roads. This desire ends up in mild anger of the people driving cars in a civilised manner.
It was once again a traffic-jam day on Monday when VVIP movements blocked all main roads and created chaos equally on good and completely dug up roads of the city.
All roads leading to the hotel where Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz was to attend a corporate body's programme remained choked and even those who were invited to attend the programme were asked to disembark from their far away from the destination.
There was no one to listen to reason and consider the fact that the guests had already been screened and cleared to attend the programme. They should have been allowed to proceed. Who knows how many reacted angrily to this kind of midway reception by police and other security officials and refused to attend the programme.
The security staff was over-cautious as the road in front of the State Guest House and the US Consulate had already experienced terrorist attacks in the past. To avoid any repeat performance from the terrorists all vehicles were thoroughly checked and the guests who reached the hotel a few minutes late were politely refused entry for being late by a few seconds.
The latecomers were victims of the condition of city roads, which are broken and have developed ruts and corrugation, already congested and stuffed by cars purchased on lease.
In the afternoon, when the VVIP movements were directed towards Pakistan Muslim League House, the traffic on Karsaz Road was forced to follow police instructions. Residents living around PML House were asked to remain enclosed inside their houses till the function was over.
People living in KDA Scheme-1 were highly agitated over this kind of traffic and security arrangement, which had forced them to remain confined inside their houses. "I could not go out to my doctor and had to cancel my appointment because the security personnel forced me to remain inside my house till the VVIPs left the PML House," said one agitated resident.
Many newsmen, who were invited by Press Information Department, to cover the visit of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to PML at 3 pm were treated in a very discourteous manner at the entrance of PML House.
Those who talked to the newsmen were either officials from security department or belonging to PML. They refused entry of many newsmen and told them that the function was over---much before 3 pm.
All roads leading to PML House were closed for traffic much before 2:30 pm and the newsmen were refused parking within a radius of two km from PML House.
"The Security of the VVIPs and the ensuing inconvenience has become a problem for the city where people already suffer at the hands of civic bodies which have scraped city roads and have restricted movements to a few roads," said people living on M A Jinnah Road and in the vicinity of Central Jail.
Roads connecting M A Jinnah Road and Central Jail were adversely affected due to diversion from other roads to facilitate movement of guests and VVIPs to PML House.
By now the VVIPs should realise that their movements, followed by the movements of lower ranks, are not welcome in the city, for obvious reasons. They should know that roads are in a bad shape: most of them have been scraped and scooped, "to be replaced with new roads".
These roads are in bad shape because of bad planning. Who knows that motives other than public service might be involved in road repair projects. Generally, these under-repair roads give an impression of abandonment.
Instead of taking note of the worsening condition of civic amenities in Karachi and holding officials accountable for their poor performance, there prevails silence---maybe owing to political exigencies.
The movement of VVIPs will always be welcome once the city roads have been reconstructed and widened, traffic signals repaired and made operational, alternative routes for diversion of traffic are in place and the VVIPs begin to minimise their travels. In this age of advanced technology and means of transportation, use of helicopters by VVIPs would be a most appropriate arrangement. It would save their time, and people the inconvenience!
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