LAHORE, Nov 5: There was usual business activity in all wholesale and retail markets of the city as police baton-charged and tear-gassed several hundred lawyers and some political activists, who had gathered inside the Lahore High Court to protest against imposition of emergency and proclamation of PCO.

“There was nothing unusual about business today except that both customers and shopkeepers remained busy in discussing rumours about the alleged change in government in Islamabad,” Zahid Butt, a trader, told Dawn on Monday.

All markets, except The Mall, where lawyers planned to take out their protest rally, remained open, and people continued to throng them.

“In the absence of cable news television channels — which were taken off air on a government order on Saturday after proclamation of emergency in the country by the chief of army staff, the people had to depend on the word of mouth, and you know bad news travels faster than good news,” Butt said.

He, however, added, “it didn’t affect our sales much.”

Wholesalers and retailers say their business had already been experiencing a slowdown for the last several days because of political uncertainty in the country.

“The imposition of emergency has added to that feeling but has not affected much the general business sentiment,” Lahore Qaumi Tajir Ittehad (QTI) chairman Ansar Butt said.

The government is said to already have tamed trading community by allowing them several tax and other concessions over the last few years. Therefore, most traders are not prepared to indulge in any kind of political activity against it.

“This government has settled a number of issues facing the traders’ community. Therefore, traders are not prepared to pull down shutters as a community,” he said. But, he admitted that “you’d find many individual traders grumbling against imposition of emergency and resorting to use of force to curb movement for democracy in the country.”

“If the government successfully curbs crime and checks terrorism after imposing the state of emergency, we’d welcome it,” he said.

Another QTI leader Sheikh Mushtaq said a situation of despondency exists among traders due to political uncertainty.

“The situation is evolving. A general confusion is prevailing in the market and as the situation clears, the markets will react accordingly,” he said.