MQM-P decides to support traders’ campaign for reopening businesses

Amid the ongoing tussle between the federal and Sindh governments over decisions regarding the lockdown and other related issues in Karachi, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) has decided to support the demands of smaller traders and transporters for allowing them to open their businesses if they follow the standard operating procedure (SOPs).

On Monday, a delegation of traders’ leaders led by Atiq Mir, the head of the All Karachi Tajir Ittehad, met MQM-P Convenor Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui and other leaders at the party’s office in Bahadurabad and requested them to coordinate with the federal and Sindh governments for devising an effective strategy to resolve the unrest among the traders' community due to the lockdown.

Mir informed the MQM-P leadership that small traders had been badly affected due to the lockdown and the Sindh government had no sympathy for them as it was apathetic towards what the traders and labourers were going through.

Karachi’s small traders are being discriminated against as only the metropolis remains under the lockdown, he said. “Ramazan has already started and this is the biggest sale season for business community and closure in these days means a loss for the whole year,” Mir told the MQM-P leaders.

MQM-P Senior Deputy Convener Amir Khan, Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar, Kunwar Navid Jamil and Faisal Subzwari were also present at the meeting. Dr Siddiqui told the traders that his party supported their demands and would demand of the federal and Sindh governments to resolve their issues.

He said the MQM-P’s past experiences had showed that the Sindh government would not do anything to provide relief to the small traders of the city; therefore, the party would engage Prime Minister Imran Khan for the resolution of their issues.

The MQM-P convener, however, clarified that the party would not participate in politicking on the coronavirus crisis. He said Karachi’s affairs were being run from Islamabad and the Chief Minister House. “The people who are dealing with the city’s affairs do not belong to the city,” he remarked.

The traders of Karachi, a city that has been earning 70 per cent of the country’s revenue, have been deprived of their genuine rights, he said. “We demand that the government allow them to reopen their businesses gradually and after evolving consensus on some SOPs.”

“Small-scale traders are the worst affected in the prevailing circumstances as they are struggling to manage things with limited income and are unable to afford further lockdown,” Dr Siddiqui said. He added that the party knew that traders were in no position to pay their utility bills and taxes.

The MQM-P leaders told The News that the party leaders were in contact with various traders and markets bodies across the city and were listening to their genuine grievances.

Senior MQM-P leader and Federal Minister for IT Aminul Haque said the party leadership, which was also involved in providing relief to the needy people during to the lockdown, had now decided to support the traders’ demands who had been suffering badly from what he called ‘economic genocide’.

“The MQM-P supported the provincial government’s decision of lockdown in a meeting before its enforcement,” Haque told The News. “But the provincial government did not fulfil any of its promises, including that of distribution of rations among the needy people, it made before the announcement of the lockdown and distributed expired rations among a few people in union councils through their own party members.”