Karachi: Transport Mafia vs Green Bus Project

Recently the beloved son of Karachi and Pakistan, Mustafa Kamal introduced the environmental friendly GREEN BUSES Project which is an another gift of Haq Parast Panel to the citizens of Karachi for easing out the transportation problems and providing them greener and cost effective transportational network.

The project was an outcome of frustration from the CDGK who had previously been promised by the federal capital and province to initiate a multi-billion mirage, “The Mass Transit Project” but promises in the land of pure “are made to be broken”, apart from the people of Karachi had understood over years that only a Karachite could solve Karachi's problems. The CDGK with her own money bought 50 buses became the only city council in Pakistan and South Asia to fund her own Mass Transit Project .

Obviously, all this development and Mass Transit System is a threat to our Transport Mafia who had hijacked Karachi’s transportation system for more than 50 years and has killed thousands of Karachites in accidents which has caused rioting. While the Green Bus Project was celebrated by everyone in Karachi and Pakistan the only opposition to the Green Buses Project came from the likely source: Provincial Transport Minister Akhtar Hussain Jadoon where he gave out what the media actually criticizing the Green Buses Project and actually went on to give absurdly a statement like, “that the CDGK’s duty should be to clean the drains and not to initiate transport projects”.

Yes, the cat came out of the bag and the Transport Mafia came out in force to oppose to the project. It’s not hard for a lay-man to understand who is really behind the transport mafia in Karachi? Akhtar Hussain Jadoon apparently is one of those persons who had actually has huge stakes in Karachi’s transport and it’s amazes us to the core as to how someone who is directly involved in transport business is given an all important portfolio of Transport?

Plus the credibility of the honorable minister is such that he was caught at airport with a pistol. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan /metropolitan/13+sindh+transport+minister+detained-za-04
The Green Bus Project is indeed a threat to the their businesses as it will eventuallu in long term break the monopoly of Transport Mafia which is involved in price fixing and black-mailing the people of Karachi for decades.

Apparently this is the same Transport Mafia which is involved from cutting down millions of acres of timer in Afghanistan and Pakistan to smuggling. It is also a known fact that they are involved in car-jacking in Karachi as these vary people provides logistical support to them in smuggling those cars to go across borders. The mafia then resold them to clients in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Sixty-five thousand cars from Karachi alone from 1992-1998 were jacked from Karachi and transported to Afghanistan only to reappaear in Pakistan with their number plates changed. The transport mafia also smuggled in electronic goods from Dubia, Sharjah and other Persian Gulf ports while exporting heroin hidden in Afghan dried fruit and seasoned timber on Ariana. Their nexus with Talibans is widely known.

Let’s not also forget that all of Karachi’s 60,000 auto-rickshaws two strokes are owned by not more than five people who hails from Mesud, Jadoon, Afridi tribes in NWFP and rent’s them out to drivers from Rs.250-400 / day despite a Sindh High Court judgment on the ban on two-stokes rickshaws. The president of Richshaw Association, Hafiz-ul-Haq Hasan Zai a front man who works for the transport mafia absurdly maintains that the judgment by Sindh High Court is a “conspiracy against Pashtoons” forgetting that

Peshawer his home-town and the capital of NWFP has not only banned two-stroke rickshaws but has made sure that they don’t come on road. Apparently, when the law is enforced in Karachi for the betterment of Karachi where the government started the Green Rickshaw Campaign where loans to the rickshaw drivers were provided in a Presidential Employment Scheme via SEMDA Bank – the transport mafia made sure that the scheme gets scrapped as the new greener rickshaws was a threat to their 60,000 rickshaws.

Coming back to the Green Buses issue, CDGK under Mustafa Kamal has vowed that the scheme will continue but only with the support of the people but obviously, the vindictive nature of the Transport Mafia is widely known. Some years back, they shot-dead the owner of Metro Buses and made sure her widow does not continue the services. In a recent move by those who consider, weapons as their jewelry, they tried sabotaging the Green Bus Project and the only yesterday, in a shocking incident when one of the new Green Bus No. JB 1225 coming from Surjani Town Area of Karachi was forced by the Transport Mafia Bus with there Khan Coach which tried to somehow cause an accident but the trained and brave bus driver of Green Bus saved the day for the citizens and commuters of the bus.

Now it is up to the people of Karachi to actually support CDGK and Mustafa Kamal in actually fighting the new conspiracy of Transport Mafia against the New Greener Buses for Karachites.