Hyderabad used to have a decent civil airport with a 7054 ft long runway and regular flights to Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. The airport got closed in 1998 due to losses. There was an announcement recently to reopen the airport on July 26, 2008 but the event got postponed after the runway was declared not upto-mark for commercial service yet.
In the meantime, Government of Sindh announced 10,000 posts in Police department and found a novel use for the Hyderabad Airport runway. In the photo above, candidates for police posts are seen running on the runway of Hyderabad Aiprort as part of their physical fitness test.
Photo is from July 22, 2008. Looking at the ‘jazba’ (motivation) of the runners in the photo below, a poetic verse comes to my mind:
rau meiN hai rakhsh-e-umr, kahaaN dekhiye thamay
nay haath baag par hai na paa hai rakaab meiN
Photo Credits: Farhan Khan at APP
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Here is another photo from the event
Running people will not deteriorate the runway, but I was amused to see the title photo, hence this post. It also happened to coincide with the ongoing controversy of opening/not-opening the Hyderabad airport amid claims that runway is not plane worthy.
I believe Hyderabad airport should be opened. It is the second largest city in Sindh and deserves a funtioning airport for its large populace.
If fast running is a qualifiaction, I will hire the guy on the left, in white shirt and shalwar, running ahead of the pack.
I’ve never seen a fat police wala running. Would this test be of any use in the force? Oh, maybe what they don’t know is that the candidates who can’t run and are at the end close to the jeep (in the pic) will be selected.
Or is this merely practice for running away from the ‘scene of crime’?
With the kind of salary they pay to a cop its surprising that anyone applies for the job (except of course if OPAR KI AMADNI is your motivation.)