RAWALPINDI: Instead of improving security measures in bazaars and other public places, the local police and district administration sent out notices to traders, asking them to adopt security measures, which has led to traders threatening to hold protests.

In notices sent to shop owners on Jinnah Road on Thursday, the traders were asked to deploy a security guard at their shop, install CCTV cameras, an alarm system, fire extinguishers and safe lockers.

“Traders are already facing financial problems and making these arrangements is going to worsen their problems,” Nasir Mir, the secretary general of Sanitary and Pipe Traders Association told Dawn.

He said that instead of ensuring everyone is safe, the PML-N led government is now forcing people to hire security guards.

“Not all the traders can bear the additional expense of paying a guard Rs20,000 every month,” he said.

“We pay taxes and get nothing in return from the government. Providing a safe environment is the government’s responsibility, in which it has failed,” he added.

The president of the Rawalpindi Traders Association Sheikh Siddique told Dawn that traders would meet the district coordination officer and the city police officer to register their complaints about the misuse of authority.

“We will make arrangements for securing bazaars and markets if the prime minister will pay for his security from his own pocket,” he said. “We all pay taxes including sales tax, income tax and property tax and the government is using all the tax money for running offshore companies instead of using it to facilitate the common man,” Mr Siddique said.

A senior official of the district administration told Dawn that the notices were issued under the Punjab Security of Vulnerable Establishment Ordinance 2015. He did admit that the law does not apply to traders and common shopkeepers and is only applicable to those who are facing a security threat.

“The advisory committees under the Punjab Security of Vulnerable Establishment Ordinance 2015 have detected 6,082 vulnerable sites including schools, colleges, mosques, seminaries and shopping malls which have not yet adopted security measures. But shopkeepers and common traders were not included in the list,” he said.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2016