Rajouri, July 29: The Mughal road, which was closed for movement of vehicles late Thursday evening, was restored for traffic early Friday morning.
Officials said that a landslide had hit the road at Dugrian, leading to its closure and vehicular movement was affected. They said that the road remained closed throughout the night.
“Road restoration work was launched during early morning hours. Slide debris was cleared and the road was restored for traffic,” they said.
Meanwhile, after its reopening this morning, the Mughal road witnessed a sharp rise in the movement of vehicles due to closure of Srinagar Jammu National Highway.
The people preferred to travel via Mughal road instead of Srinagar Jammu National Highway where traffic was affected due to shooting stones and landslides. The number of vehicles that plied on the Mughal road on Friday was double the number of vehicles plying on the routine days.
As per details assessed by Greater Kashmir from traffic police, a total of 1103 vehicles plied on Mughal road from morning till late this evening.
Out of these, 753 vehicles plied from Srinagar to Rajouri and Poonch while 350 moved from Rajouri, Poonch to Srinagar.
The officials told Greater Kashmir that this was a sharp rise in the number of vehicles moving on the road in a day. “Increase in the number of vehicles is almost double when compared to the routine days,” they added.
They further said, “The movement of vehicles on Mughal road increased as the people preferred to travel via this road rather than Srinagar Jammu National Highway where the traffic flow was getting affected time and again due to landslides and shooting stones.”
“Almost one hundred vehicles moving between Leh-Kargil and Jammu also plied via Mughal Road. This is a rare development. Ten small buses, carrying students, also followed this route,” they informed.
Deputy SP Traffic Rajouri-Poonch, Aftab Shah said, “A slight increase in the number of vehicles was being noticed in the last couple of days. But this registered almost a two-fold increase in the number on Friday.”
He said that usually 500 to 600 vehicles would ply between Srinagar and Rajouri-Poonch but 1103 vehicles plied on Friday till late evening. “This number is expected to cross almost 1200 mark by the end of day,” he said.
He also said that traffic police as well as district police teams were deployed on the road for traffic management.