All national highways in Pakistan blocked in support of traders and daily wage laborers protesting in Balochistan’s Chaman district against border closure and implementation of One Document Regime (ODR) for movement between Pakistan and Afghanistan, reports Dawn. Were done.
Following the blockade, Balochistan remained cut off from the rest of the country on Tuesday.
It is noteworthy that this protest has been going on for seven months.
The six-party opposition alliance Tehreek-e-Tahfuz Ayin-e-Pakistan (TTAP) called for blocking highways in support of those taking part in the Chaman strike, which has been going on since October last year, demanding the return of . According to Dawn, the situation of crossing the border between the two countries through passport and visa.
The protesters’ main demand is to roll back the new regulation and reinstate the old system, which allows travel on Pakistani national identity cards and Afghan ID cards, called teskeras.
All highways including Quetta-Chaman, Quetta-Zhob, Quetta-Dera Ghazi Khan and Quetta-Karachi and roads connecting Balochistan with Karachi, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa remained closed at various points.
Additionally, according to Dawn report, TTAP activists and supporters placed barricades and large stones on the highways, suspending all types of traffic between Balochistan and other provinces.
Following this, hundreds of vehicles, including passenger coaches, buses and trucks laden with import and export goods, remained stranded on the highways and roads.
Afghan transit trade has already been suspended as the Quetta-Chaman highway connecting Quetta to Kandahar has been blocked for the past two weeks and protesters are not allowing any large vehicles to pass between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
With highways and roads closed till Tuesday evening, people traveling in passenger coaches, including women and children, faced major difficulties in the extremely hot weather.
However, later in the night, TTAP workers and supporters removed the barricades and builders from the highways and restored traffic, Dawn reports.
Furthermore, no untoward incident was reported from any area of Balochistan during the blocking of highways and roads.