Sir:
Last night after a couple of years I went to the Eidgah mosque on M A Jinnah
Road (formerly Bunder Road) to attend a funeral. The chaos on the road at nine
o’clock in the night was unbelievable. This part of the road has been one-way
for the past forty years, yet cars and other vehicles were being driven on the
wrong side of the road. There was not a single traffic cop on the scene. It was
with great difficulty that I was able to navigate a couple of hundred feet of
the road and park my car on the side opposite the mosque. After that it was a
great ordeal crossing the road. The owner of a shop told me that this is the
situation throughout the day. Probably the few traffic policemen supposed to be
there are ‘ghost’ cops who faithfully draw their salaries without ever showing
up for work (and their bosses never even try to verify whether their juniors are
present at their assigned places). Then it struck me that this is symptomatic
of what’s happening in the whole country and why Pakistan is in such a mess.
Practically every government servant is interested only in making more money
for his great-grandchildren to use (as his children and grandchildren have
already been provided for).
SHAKIR LAKHANI
Karachi
Karachi
Printed in Daily Times, March 5,
2014
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