By Delawar Jan
All markets at and near the area of the blast were closed for five days due to the devastation and fear caused by the incident. The traders suffered huge losses as a result of the blast. On Monday, the shopkeepers in these once busy marketplaces resumed business but the customers stayed away.
“The business activities had already tapered off in Peshawar due to deteriorating law and order, but the blast put an end to trade and commerce in our area,” said Khushal Khan, the owner of a cloth shop in Koochi Bazaar, mostly dealing in cloths and lady garments.
There were few woman shoppers, who were described very brave by Khushal for being in the market after such a terrible incident. “I would earn Rs20,000 a day, but today I had sales of Rs1,000 only. Who will come for shopping after this terrible bombing?” he asked. He added shopkeepers were now more concerned about their lives than businesses.
“May God destroy the perpetrators of this blast,” the imam of a mosque in Koochi Bazaar yelled through the loud-speaker after Zuhr prayers. “They killed innocent children, women, a peshimam, his pupils and a mosque. They are not Muslims. Islam has not come to the universe for unleashing destruction on human beings, but to protect their lives,” the prayer leader argued. As he was cursing the terrorists, the shopkeepers across the bazaar raised their hands to say “Ameen.”
The devastating car-bombing had killed 121 people, including children and women, who were shopping in the narrow bazaars. Gazing at a heap of smashed crockery in front of his shop, Abdul Qayyum said he was lucky to have survived the attack but lost his Rs5 million business in the blink of an eye. His shop was located right opposite to the scene of the blast, which injured his brother and a servant.
“This shop was our asset. It is now reduced to this heap of broken glasses,” he said with sadness. About his future, Qayyum said he would be forced to start selling something on handcart if the government did not help him financially. “It is shocking to recall the destruction caused by the blast. Everyone on the street was killed.”
Some shopkeepers in Chirri Koban, Meena Bazaar, Koochi Bazaar and Peepal Mandi were busy in repairing their damaged shops and arranging items on the shelves that were tossed away by the blast.
Muhammad Waheed, a shopkeeper selling vermicelli in Chirri Koban, said he had remained unscathed and his shop was intact, but his house on the first floor of the same building had become uninhabitable. All the second-storey houses, damaged and decrepit, were vacated after the blast due to fear that these could collapse any moment.
Shopkeepers near the site of the blast were still in trauma. A fat man, holding handkerchief to his mouth, at his shop was oblivious to what was happening around him. Most of the shopkeepers were engrossed in deep thoughts. “I am not prepared to do business in the atmosphere of shock. I lost several colleagues,” said Shahgul in Peepal Mandi.
If there were someone at the site of the blast, they were onlookers and rescuers. The shopkeepers and traders at the locality were concerned about their future. They said Eidul Azha was approaching but they did not think people would come there for shopping. Not only in the four bazaars affected by the blast, the incident has affected business activities in the surrounding markets such as Ghanta Ghar, Chowk Yadgar, Qissa Khwani and even in Khyber Bazaar.
To speak about the general situation in the city, there was persistent fear and low business activities. The authorities could not remove rubble of the destroyed mosque and collapsed mud-brick shops from the place of the blast. Employees of the Town-I municipality continued work on Monday to remove the debris with the help of a shovel and some other basic equipment. Roads to the bombed site remained closed with barbed-wire fences.
A note and a banner had been displayed about the persons missing since the day of the blast. It read as follows: “Relatives of those martyrs whose bodies are still missing should contact the tehsildar for registration.”