Delhiites suffered huge traffic snarls on Friday afternoon when thousands of lawyers carried out a protest march from Patiala House Court to India Gate and then returned to the court.
Traffic was disrupted for more than three hours around the outer circle of India Gate and heavy traffic movement was observed on the roads connecting to India Gate. The roads that were affected the most were — K G Marg, Akbar Road, Pandara Road, Shah Jahan Road, Dr Zakhir Husain Marg, Tilak Marg, Copernicus Marg, Ashoka Road.
Also, the visitors at India Gate were panicked after seeing thousands of advocates carrying out a march and raising slogans. In fear, many of them left the place despite heavy police deployment to maintain law and order situation.
Commuters using India Gate outer circle to go to South Delhi, Central Delhi or East Delhi were stuck in long traffic snarls as half of the carriageway was closed by the Delhi Police. “I was going to Darjagunj to meet my relative but it took more than one hour to cross Dr Zakhir Hussain Road to ITO. Half of the road was blocked which was why the traffic was heavy on the functional lane. Policemen were spotted everywhere but no one was helping in easy movement of the traffic,” said Rakesh, a resident of Defence Colony.
A cop said: “Soon after the protest was over, the traffic movement became normal.”