The Punjab Highway Department (PHD) held traffic police and the district administration responsible for the Murree tragedy in which 23 tourists lost their lives on January 7.
In its probe report, the PHD said that no traffic police personnel was present on the Klidna-Barian road on the night when motorists were stuck in massive traffic jams amid the freezing weather conditions on the road.
PHD’s vehicles were also stuck in the jams, thus it was not possible to remove snow from the roads that night, said the department.
Blaming the traffic police and the district administrator, the PHD said that they did not stop tourists from entering the hill station despite extreme weather conditions. Murree is able to accommodate a maximum of 4,000 vehicles, but the traffic police and the district administration allowed a large number of vehicles to enter the tourist destination, said the PHD.
