May 02, 2008	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 25, 1429

KARACHI, May 1: Transporters operating reti-bajri trucks and dumpers in the city have announced a three-day strike starting on Friday against the fresh hike in the prices of petroleum products.

The decision was taken at a meeting presided over by Shahi Syed, Chairman of the Pakhtun Action Committee (Loya Jirga), held here on Thursday.

The meeting was attended by 23 members of the committee’s executive committee including Haji Mir Zaman, Haji Sher Afzal, Afzal Khan Masood and Mohammad Akram.

The meeting also decided to raise the reti-bajri rates with effect from May 5.

The meeting also discussed various issues like snatching of trucks and dumpers, double tax being levied on Sindh-Balochistan route, police misbehaviour, etc, and decided to take up the issues with provincial government.

NTI not to raise fares

The National Transport Ittehad (NTI) on Thursday strongly condemned the fresh hike in petrol and diesel prices, and said that transporters would rather close down their business than raise fares again if the government did not reverse the latest decision about POL prices.

NTI chairman Salim Khan Bangash, and other leaders including Taj Khan Bangash, Raja Mohammad Rafique, Nazir Hussain Usmanzai, Haji Rauf Khan, Ashraf Banglori, Shahrom Khan and Malik Ehsan, said the government had announced the fresh hike despite the fact that prices in the international market had fallen to $113 per barrel after touching the $120 mark last week.

They observed that the fresh hike in oil prices, second in a fortnight, would add to the miseries of the common man because the prices of essential commodities would also go up accordingly as the fallout of the decision.

They deplored that petrol prices had registered Rs6 per litre increase in less than a month and if this trend continued, the rate might surge to Rs100 per litre in the next six months.

The NTI said people should raise their voice against the fresh price hike by staging street protests.

Meanwhile, the Anjuman Ittehad-i-Bus Malikan and the Karachi Transport Action Committee (KTAC), in a joint statement on Thursday threatened to observe a nationwide wheel-jam strike against the fresh hike.

They said that contacts with transport organisations across the country were being made in this regard.—PPI