Vehicles had been haphazardly parked outside the Rose Garden in Sector 16. Sunday was the final day of the Rose Festival. The situation worsened between 3 pm and 8 pm.

Around 3 lakh people visited the Rose Garden and Leisure Valley on Sunday. Vehicles were parked everywhere, on road berms, on the road, behind TAJ GVK and James Plaza and on cycle tracks on Jan Marg. Even the slow-carriageways were used as parking lots.

Said a senior traffic police officer, “We tried hard to regulate traffic but the inflow of vehicles was unimaginable. We had no other option but to stop the traffic at GMSH-16 to Matka Chowk”.

An even bigger chaos awaited visitors at night when singer Sunidhi Chauhan performed at Leisure Valley. Chandigarh Police blocked the Madhya Marg stretch from GMSH-16 Hospital roundabout till Matka chowk in the evening.

The road was kept blocked till late evening on Sunday.