Security improves on highway once dubbed road to death

TALOQAN (Pajhwok): Residents have hailed improved security on the highway linking northern Takhar and Kunduz provinces.

In the not-so-distant past, the Kunduz-Takhar highway was dubbed as the road to death because of growing insecurity.

As a result of a surge in targeted killings and extortions, residents complained, that travel on the road had once become hellishly difficult.

Hidayatullah, one of the drivers, said he had been using this road for years. Violent and criminal incidents spiked in recent years under the former government. He claimed to witness all too often extortions and murders of passengers at the hands of gunmen.

But Hidayatullah noted passengers and drivers were currently traveling peacefully, as there were no longer security concerns.

Driver Nasrullah said: “Two years back when I was traveling this road, gunmen had set up a checkpoint in the Chanza area of Khanabad district.

The gunmen had then beheaded 22 years old in an incident that marked the beginning of a wave of insecurity on this road. That left everyone shell-shocked.”

He was thrilled by improved security, voicing his satisfaction with the overall situation. The driver hoped the prevailing environment would be stabilised further.

Hidayatullah, one of the civil society activists, told Pajhwok Afghan News in the not-so-distant past, government servants, journalists, civil society activists and traders could not travel the road.

He recalled they often heard of murders, extortions, harassment and other incidents of insecurity on the road.

Police spokesman Mobin Safi promised improved highway security, saying the road was regularly patrolled and security checkpoints had been established in different areas to protect the people.

The highway connects Takhar, Kunduz and Badakhshan provinces with Kabul and other areas in the north.

nh/mud