Dir shopkeepers protest against lockdown

DIR: Hundreds of shopkeepers in Dir city on Monday staged a protest rally outside the deputy commissioner office against the ongoing lockdown and demanded the government to allow them to reopen their businesses. Traders, shopkeepers, tailors, jewellers and others blocked the main road near the DC office for hours.

The shopkeepers demanded the district administration to allow them to run businesses such as general stores, flour, medicine stores and others.Later, a delegation of the protesters, office-bearers of Dir Bazaar traders’ union, president Khalid Roghani, Jehangir Ali Shah, Riaz Khan Tajik, and others met DC Khalid Iqbal Khattak at his office. The official told delegation that the district administration was well aware of their miseries but they had to follow government standard operating procedures (SOPs) against coronavirus pandemic. He said that the government had already evolved a policy for lockdown and it should be implemented at any cost.