With the Delhi government announcing certain relaxations inthe third phase of the lockdown in the city, traffic jams and resultant chaoswas witnessed at many places in the national capital and inter-state bordercheckpoints in the morning hours on Monday.
Long queues of vehicles moving at snail’s pace werewitnessed at police checkpoints set up to rein in lockdown violators in Delhias well as in the border areas.
Maximum traffic snarls were witnessed on the Akshardham Roadgoing towards the Delhi-Noida border, on the Delhi-Mehrauli Road, checkpoint onthe National Highway-8 on the Delhi-Gurugram route, and the Delhi-Ghaziabadborder.
The chaos started around 9 am and continued for aroundone-and-a-half hours, before the situation totally normalised around 11 am.
Hundreds of commuters had verbal run-ins with policedeployed on the border checkpoints over the validity of movement passes. Whilethe commuters maintained that authorities that had issued the passes during theearlier phases of the lockdown were still valid, police maintained that theywould have to get fresh passes issued.
Commuters were also seen arguing with police on theDelhi-Dallupur Road and the Delhi-Noida border. While police maintained thatthey only recognised passes issued by the Gautam Buddh Nagar DistrictMagistrate, commuters wanted to enter Noida on the basis of passes issued byauthorities in Delhi.
Though police of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana weredeployed in their respective jurisdictional areas on both sides of the bordercheckposts, they refused to let in commuters who held vehicle passes withearlier dates of issuance.
A spokesman of the Ghaziabad District Magistrate told IANSthat police had been directed to let government servants, doctors and mediapersons move across the border in case they showed their official identitycards.