Parents of PMET test candidates protest, block NH1

Agitated parents today blocked traffic on National Highway 1 in front of Lovely Professional University (LPU) to protest against poor arrangements witnessed during the Punjab Pre-Medical Entrance Test-2015 (PMET) conducted in the university campus.
The test was conducted by Baba Farid University in LPU campus.
The blockade, which started around 12.30 pm, continued till 2.40 pm, creating vehicular chaos in LPU's 5 kms radius, causing extreme inconvenience to commuters.
The protesting parents alleged that inadequate parking arrangements were made, forcing them to take their cars quiet away from LPU, leading to traffic clutter and delay in the entry of many students.

They alleged that only one examination centre was made for thousands of students, that too in a far-flung private university, just to oblige it as it was patronised by the Badals.
Protesters also raised anti-Badals and anti-Modi slogans.

They lied down on NH1 to block traffic on both sides of Phagwara-Jalandhar and Phagwara-Ludhiana, leading to long queues of vehicles.
They alleged that while official time of the test was 11 am, it was started at 11.45 am just to oblige children of VIPs by allegedly leaking the question paper, the allegation which could not be confirmed as media was not allowed to enter the closed gates.

Protesters, including Anil Bansal of Bathinda, whose son Saurav Bansal was appearing in the test, demanded cancellation of paper, holding it afresh by making 3-4 Centers in big cities.
However, Phagwara SDM Keshav Hingonia and DSP Manpreet Singh Dhillon, present at the site with huge force, denied all these allegations.
They attributed some delay to sudden rush of thousands of cars and other vehicles used by parents and relatives to ferry their children to the venue of the test.
Kapurthala DC D.S. Mangat and SSP Ashish Chowdhary were camping at the site. Meanwhile, police diverted traffic through arterial roads, causing series of other jams on small rural roads.

However, the NH1 was cleared of the blockade at around 2.40 pm.