Hours-long jam on Sohna Road as students’ protest

Commuters said it took more than an hour to cross the Rajiv Chowk underpass, with four-wheelers, buses and two-wheelers immobilised and tailbacks extending towards the mini secretariat corridor

Hundreds of commuters were trapped on Sohna Road for several hours on Monday afternoon as a traffic jam stretched nearly three kilometres, leaving an ambulance and other vehicles stuck for long periods.

Sohna Road also witnessed congestion earlier in the day after multiple vehicles collided near the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam office in Badshahpur around 9am. (HT Photo)

The congestion affected traffic from Sohna Road, the Rajiv Chowk underpass and Tau Devi Lal Sports Complex junction towards Civil Lines and the District and Sessions Court. Traffic police said the jam was triggered by a student protest outside the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) office.

Commuters said it took more than an hour to cross the Rajiv Chowk underpass, with four-wheelers, buses and two-wheelers immobilised and tailbacks extending towards the mini secretariat corridor.

“We hadn’t moved an inch in nearly 40 minutes,” said a commuter travelling towards Old Gurugram. “Inside the underpass, the trapped exhaust fumes and blaring horns were suffocating. The worst part was seeing an ambulance siren wailing right behind us with nowhere to go.”

The ambulance remained stuck for nearly 40 minutes, commuters said.

Traffic police deployed teams and introduced diversions, with officials taking nearly three hours to restore normal movement.

Sohna Road also witnessed congestion earlier in the day after multiple vehicles collided near the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam office in Badshahpur around 9am. Traffic officials said the affected vehicles were moved to the side of the road to ease the bottleneck.

Our degrees are at risk, say students

Students of the State Institute of Advanced Studies in Teacher Education (SIASTE) protested outside SCERT on Monday over uncertainty surrounding the validity of their BA-BEd degrees, with the institute operating without mandatory recognition from the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE).

Nearly 800 students are affected, according to a representation submitted to Gurugram deputy commissioner Uttam Singh.

The students sought written assurance that those who have graduated or cleared examinations would not face problems related to qualifications, employment or any proposed shifting arrangement.

The issue is also before the Punjab and Haryana high court. In a September 29 order, the court recorded that NCTE’s Northern Regional Committee had given a no-objection to the notional shifting of students to recognised institutions, subject to sanctioned intake capacity.

The NCTE told the court that current students would be shifted to recognised institutions, while those who had already graduated would also be notionally shifted. The Haryana government submitted that degrees already issued by the university would remain valid.

The next hearing is scheduled for October 13.