KARACHI: A shutter-down strike call against the soaring inflation, which Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) had given for Monday, saw a thin response in the megacity, traders said.
Shops were seen closed in some patches across the downtown markets and other localities. However, markets in the old city area showed a lukewarm response to the strike, they said.
Public and private transport was seen plying on roads unrestricted. “It was a mixed trend as markets in old city are closed and Tariq Road opened,” Abdullah Razzaq, a trader at the gold market said.
Atiq Mir, Chairman All Karachi Tajir Ittehad called the strike as “failed and chaotic”, saying that a very thin response from traders came to the shutter-down call by the religious party.
Markets in Saddar including the electronics dealers, Clifton, Tariq Road and other localities had already refused to observe the strike. “Few markets here and there remained either partially closed or fully during the strike,” he said.
Jodia Bazaar in the old city area remained open for the trade during the day, he said. However, he supported the TLP’s call to protest the inflation.
“We have come out of a prolonged phase of strikes in the city and no traders will want to shut down their businesses again on the call of political parties,” he said, adding: “We will never ever go for strike on a political party’s call.”
In some areas, he said, traders closed down their shops because a religious affinity with the TLP but in others businesses were forced to observe the strike.
“It was not a protest rather a chaos,” Atiq Mir said that a strike for a good cause turned as disruption because of the mismanagement. He said that members of the religious party pressured traders to follow their guidelines.
Muhammad Qasim Fakhri, a provincial legislator of the TLP thanked the public and traders for supporting their strike. They claimed that traders volunteered to close down their businesses to protest the inflation.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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