A traffic warden was severely beaten by local transporters in Murree on Sunday for issuing a ticket to the driver of an illegally parked vehicle. This is not the first time locals have shown their barbaric and ill-mannered attitude.

Police said that the driver of Suzuki pick-up truck had wrongly parked his vehicle in main Murree city at Sunny Bank Chowk when warden Afzaal told him to move his car as it was blocking the traffic.

Observing that the van was blocking traffic, traffic warden Afzaal approached the van’s driver and told him to remove his car.

When the driver did not comply, the warden — after waiting for a few minutes — demanded that the driver show him his documents so that he could issue him a ticket.

At this, the driver tried to first thwart the warden and then started beating him up. Other local drivers present on the spot also joined the driver in manhandling and beating the police officer.

Other traffic officers who tried to intervene were also beaten up by the drivers. Videos of the incident soon went viral on social media.

Murree Police said that apart from being punched, Warden Afzaal was also struck with an iron rod and received injuries to his head and face. His uniform was also torn by the drivers.

In the past few months, some videos and photos on different social networking sites showed tourists insulted, abused, and physically thrashed by locals. Due to this unruly behavior by locals, a public call to boycott visiting Murree started circulating on Facebook and Twitter under the hashtag ‘Boycott Murree.’

The Solution

It seems that these local hooligans haven’t learnt any lesson. So its time they should be dealt with an iron fist. It will be appropriate to publicly shove an iron rod up their bottoms.

This punishment should be handed out in the same area where they beat up the innocent traffic warden who was doing his job as he should.