According to daily commuters, if the police were to place restrictions on the movement of traffic then it could have simply publicised it through newspapers and radio stations. This could have allowed the general public to choose alternative routes or modes of transport to reach their destinations, instead police inaction squeezed out these alternatives.
According to M.S. Randhawa, Delhi Police PRO, the police received the intelligence on the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act early morning and it did not have ample time to undertake publicity measures informing the public-at-large on the barricading and traffic restrictions on the Delhi-Gurgaon border.
According to a senior police official, the police were inspecting vehicles on the border and it resulted in a traffic pile-up.
Mohit Tandon, a senior official at a multinational firm at Gurgaon, said "It seemed hundreds of cars were bundled up on the road. It was sheer chaos, and I spent close to three hours to reach my office in Cyber Hub. The police could have informed us through the FM radio and I would have hopped onto the Metro."
Videos of the traffic jam on the highway had gone viral on various social media platforms. For many commuters, the traffic jam was worse than a nightmare as cars were stuck bumper-to-bumper.
"It was not possible to park my car at a safe place and hop on a taxi to my workplace. Everyday thousands commute back and forth between Delhi and Gurgaon, a simple message from the police would have saved the public from this horror," said Mohit Gupta, an employee at a textile firm at Udyog Vihar in Gurgaon.
Many commuters also blamed the police for not swinging into action to help people stranded on roads in the massive traffic jam on the highway.
"The police could clearly see that there is a huge traffic jam on the road, but it did not do anything to aid people who were stuck. Imagine getting stuck in traffic for more than three hours and being left with nowhere to go," said Manu Sabharwal, who works for an international NGO in Gurgaon.
( With inputs from IANS )