Daily Times

Travellers in twin-cities had been facing constraints due to the long march of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf as some of the bus services had stopped inter-city advance bookings due to pertaining law and order situation.

Talking to APP, passenger Muhammad Shahzad said that he was planning to travel from Islamabad to Multan for official purposes but he learned that advance ticketing from the relevant bus service was not available.

Another passenger Zaheer Khan said that containers had been placed on roadsides and entry points could be closed at any time due to which passengers were unable to plan their travel. He added that anyone could enjoy the right to protest after making sure that the lives of citizens were not being disturbed.

When contacted, a bus office staffer Ali Khan said in the recent past company had stopped the pre-bookings. He explained that passengers blamed the bus service without understanding the ground realities and security concerns in case of a skipped bus. He said transporters had used luxurious, imported and expensive buses on inter-city routes and being on the safe side they stopped the pre-bookings. Appreciating the government and security departments, another ticketing officer Shakeel Ahmed said that they were issuing advance tickets as roads were open and their buses were completing the routes without any trouble.

He further said that transporters always tried to provide the best facilities to the passengers and urged for the cooperation of passengers in difficult security situation.