Daily Times

Whenever cricket matches are announced and Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore is the arena, a sudden spell of panic appears on the faces of the residents living in the nearby residential areas. Before the series of Pakistan Super League cricket matches were to begin, a police large carried out rehearsals in real-time. PSL matches have seriously affected the lives of the ordinary people, the shopkeepers and daily wage earners. It’s fun for some; anathema for the innumerable.

Imagine the plight of the road-users during the rehearsals carried out from the airport to Pearl Continental Hotel and the Qaddafi Stadium when the Mall Road, Canal Road, Jail Road, and Main Boulevard Gulberg were closed for traffic. All hues of security forces, the police, rangers, dolphins and the rescue staff paraded the roads, leaving the common citizens bewildered. Also consider the pitiable situation of those taking their patients in emergency to the government and private hospitals located on the Jail Road, which was blocked. How would the kin of the sick ‘welcome’ the PSL? They would most likely shower the so-called PSL with words unworthy of print.

The residents in the neighbourhood of the stadium are confined to their homes for as long as the matches last. My friend Arif Nawaz, a software developer who lives near the stadium, feels most offended by the matches. Compulsorily homebound, he has become allergic to the very name of cricket. Even though he was a googly thrower in his college days. Gaddafi stadium located in the middle of the city has a number of main roads leading to or passing by it. When main roads are closed, small roads linking up with them are clogged as well. Thus life comes to a standstill.

Along the route of PSL teams, the routine life badly suffers causing miseries to nearby residents and road-users. The administration changed the timings of the schools and offices of private businesses. Is education of children more important or the cricket matches? Are private businesses that pay taxes to the government more important or the conduct of PSL? And the hardship caused to the citizens by road blockages is not for a day or two; it’s to go on until the matches end.

Leaving PSL aside, the security protocols have become a symbol of high status in the country. How much this ‘pomp and show’ costs the public exchequer is never disclosed. Recently, the outgoing CJP Gulzar Ahmad asked for security detail for his safety, as he claimed he had given certain decisions that could endanger his life and the lives of his family members. The same was granted to him without any hesitation.

If every retiring judge asks for police and rangers protection, where will the matter end? Judges being the men of wisdom may realise that even our breaths are counted as believers. One’s end comes whether one travels amidst a large security protocol or spends his life in a solitary hotel room, as did the most honourable Justice A R Cornelius. Justice Cornelius carved his name in history as a judge and a gentleman larger than life. Sadly, men like him don’t come anymore.

Regrettably, the officialdom treats the ordinary people as expendable yokels. They’re pushed, harried and harassed with impunity. When someone important is escorted to attend the NAB office near Niazbeg Thokar on the Multan road, the traffic on the main road is blocked. The area next to NAB office spanning a few hundred meters is an extremely busy thoroughfare since it serves as entry and exit points for the traffic on the main Multan road and also for the motorway. And then the Babe-Lahore near the police check post about which less said the better. Whose good taste this structure appeals to is not known, but it acts as a roadblock causing misery for the bumper-to-bumper traffic passing through it. For public interest, the tendered cost of this structure was about Rs2.5 million but it completed at the cost of nearly Rs8 million. What purpose does it serve and what a dent to the public kitty!

Civics was a compulsory subject during our school and college days in the sixties and seventies. It enumerated citizens’ rights that the government had to grant them and, in return, the duties the citizens had to perform to assist the government run its affairs smoothly. To cut it short, the security protocols rub the ordinary citizens the wrong way. For now they pray: Save us from PSL.

The writer is a Lahore-based columnist and can be reached at pinecity@gmail.com.