Traffic jams hit Delhi after confusion over lockdown passes

With the Delhi government announcing certain relaxations in the third phase of the lockdown in the city, traffic jams and resultant chaos was witnessed at many places in the national capital and inter-state border checkpoints in the morning hours on Monday.

Long queues of vehicles moving at snail's pace were witnessed at police checkpoints set up to rein in lockdown violators in Delhi as well as in the border areas.

Maximum traffic snarls were witnessed on the Akshardham Road going towards the Delhi-Noida border, on the Delhi-Mehrauli Road, checkpoint on the National Highway-8 on the Delhi-Gurugram route, and the Delhi-Ghaziabad border.

The chaos started around 9 am and continued for around one-and-a-half hours, before the situation totally normalised around 11 am.

Hundreds of commuters had verbal run-ins with police deployed on the border checkpoints over the validity of movement passes. While the commuters maintained that authorities that had issued the passes during the earlier phases of the lockdown were still valid, police maintained that they would have to get fresh passes issued.

Commuters were also seen arguing with police on the Delhi-Dallupur Road and the Delhi-Noida border. While police maintained that they only recognised passes issued by the Gautam Buddh Nagar District Magistrate, commuters wanted to enter Noida on the basis of passes issued by authorities in Delhi.

Though police of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana were deployed in their respective jurisdictional areas on both sides of the border checkposts, they refused to let in commuters who held vehicle passes with earlier dates of issuance.

A spokesman of the Ghaziabad District Magistrate told IANS that police had been directed to let government servants, doctors and media persons move across the border in case they showed their official identity cards.