AJK traders back Feb 5 strike call

The traders of 25 major markets of Muzaffarabad on Tuesday announced that they would support the Awami Action Committee’s shutter-down strike call on Feb 5 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) to protest against the exorbitant increase in electricity bills.

Addressing a news conference at the Central Press Club, Shaukat Nawaz Mir, the president of the traders of Muzaffarabad, said the first and foremost demand of the committee was the provision of hydroelectricity to AJK at the actual production cost as outlined in the Constitution of Pakistan.

He complained that Wapda purchased electricity from AJK at the rate of Rs2.40 per unit and sold it back to the region for Rs37 to Rs50 per unit through the distribution companies.

He pointed out that they would stage a wheel-jam and shutter-down strike on the Kashmir Solidarity Day.

Mir said that if the government really wanted to express its solidarity with the people of Kashmir, it should issue a notification for sale of electricity to its residents at the production cost.

He continued that they sat with the government for negotiations on the condition that all “bogus” FIRs against the traders, who participated in the protests against inflated power bills last year, would be quashed.

Read: Traders urge political parties to unveil economic agenda

In September last year, AJK observed strikes with thousands of people participating in protest rallies and sit-ins across the region against exorbitantly high electricity bills as well spiralling inflation.

Markets were shut in major cities and towns of AJK, while all kinds of vehicles remained off the roads across the region, especially in Kotli, Mirpur, and Poonch districts.

That strike call was given by the Awami Action Committee in seven districts of AJK.

All organisations, including the traders’ associations, transporters, and lawyers observed the strike and participated in the protests.

Ironically, the upcoming strike call has been given for Feb 5. Kashmir Solidarity Day is also observed on the same date every year since 1975 when late premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto gave a countrywide wheel-jam protest call against the Indra-Abdullah accord denying all international norms and commitments about a peaceful solution to the Kashmir dispute as well as to condemn India’s illegal occupation of the bulk of the territory against the aspirations of its people.

(With input from APP)