PESHAWAR: The prolonged closure of the Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway (M-1) by the PTI activists heaped misery on commuters, transporters and traders.
The ruling party’s leaders and workers have closed M-1 at Swabi rest area since last Friday to demand early treatment of their incarcerated leader, Imran Khan, for “vision loss”.
The closure of M-1, the main artery connecting Peshawar with the rest of the country, has put the Grand Trunk Road, the other major road, under immense strain as the neglected highway is unable to cater to the traffic diverted from the motorway.
Also, the GT Road is facing closures by PTI activists, causing massive inconvenience to people travelling to attend urgent business meetings and exams, take international flights from Islamabad airport and seek treatment. The businessmen, whose supplies have got stuck along the road, are also distressed.
Businessmen wonder why PTI govt troubling people of KP
Jan Mulk, a businessman, who was travelling from Islamabad to Peshawar on Sunday evening, told Dawn that he left Islamabad at around 4:30pm and reached Attock at around 6:30pm before finding himself caught in a huge traffic jam at Attock crossing.
“Hundreds of vehicles were stuck in a long traffic grid lock and there was not even any way to turn back,” he said.
The businessman said that the Attock traffic gridlock forced him to return and spend the night in Islamabad before coming to Peshawar next morning.
“There were women, children and elderly, with a large number of them being on foot due to road closure and unavailability of public transport,” he said.
Mr Mulk said transporters in Attock were charging commuters Rs1,000 for a trip to Rawalpindi.
Khan Zaman Afridi, president of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Transporters Association, told Dawn that road closures had made life difficult for transports.
“Nearly 3,000 vehicles leave Peshawar General Bus Stand on a daily basis but the number has dropped to around 1500 due to road closures,” he said.
Mr Afridi said almost all public transport used the M-1 and now its closure has diverted all the traffic to the GT Road and a usual trip of two to three hours on motorway was taking over 10 hours on GT Road.
“GT Road is not old GT Road and is full of potholes and full of vans, Qingqi motorcycle-rickshaws and push carts, so it is very difficult to traverse and now, the entire motorway traffic has been diverted to it, causing massive traffic snarl,” he said.
Mr Afridi said that due to the road closures, many people had stopped travelling, and commuter arrivals at bus stands had almost halved as only people who had to attend urgent business meetings travelled in compulsion.
“It is ironic that the KP government is inflicting pain on its own people,” he said.
A representative of Faisal Movers told Dawn that his transport company had stopped its Peshawar-Islamabad operations since the start of the M-1 closure.
Junaid Altaf, president of KP Chamber of Commerce and Industry, questioned the rationale for the motorway closure.
“Who are they troubling? Is it the people of KP or residents of Punjab and Sindh who are being affected due to the M-1 closure?”
Mr Altaf said that KP chief minister and his cabinet had been sitting in Islamabad for the past many days, leaving their offices and official duties unattended.
He said that the prolonged closure of Pak-Afghan border points had already ruined the province’s business community and now, the politicians didn’t understand that the trucks stranded on the road to KP carried raw material to factories in the province and prolonged closure was hurting the business community as well as the economy of the province.
“If PTI thinks the people of KP deserve this for voting them to the powers, then it is ok and we deserve it,” he said.
Malik Sohni, president of All Pakistan Agriculture Produce Traders Federation, told Dawn that road closures had resulted in an over 10pc increase in the vegetable prices in the provincial capital.
He said that in the current season, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, okra, garlic, peas and leafy vegetables were transported from Punjab to Peshawar.
Mr Sohni said that as vegetables were perishable, prolonged blockages not only caused spoilage but also drove the prices up.
“Prices automatically go up when fresh supplies don’t reach on time,” he said.
Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2026
