LAHORE, July 23: The Pakistan Workers Confederation (PWC) has urged the federal and provincial governments to take prompt measures to check unprecedented hike in the prices of essential commodities with the advent of Ramazan.

At a news conference at the Lahore Press Club on Monday, leaders of the six constituent trade unions of the PWC were also unanimous in demanding the prices be brought back to the pre-Ramazan level and be frozen for the holy month.

They asked the government to establish its writ in Karachi and also redress the grievances of the people of Balochistan on priority basis through political means.

The government should develop national industries and agriculture sector besides taking steps to overcome serious energy loadshedding in order to check alarming rate of unemployment in the country which was resulting in increased crime, they said.

Absence of price control committees has given profiteers, stockists and black marketers to trigger price spiral, they added.

“All over the world, prices of essential commodities in particular are decreased on religious occasions but the situation in Pakistan is altogether different,” said PWC secretary general Khurshid Ahmed while calling for ruthless and indiscriminate action against the elements responsible for what he called artificial price hike.

PWC Punjab president Rubina Jameel said unprecedented inflation had been the concern of 80 per cent of country’s population.

Mr Ahmad said the Punjab government had fixed minimum wages for unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled labourers, besides supervisory staff, but labour inspection mechanism was yet to be activated to ensure implementation of the same.

He also appealed to the governments of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan to revise minimum wages and ensure the implementation of the decision in letter and spirit.

Pointing out another issue, he said on May 16 a landlord with the help of Muridke Cantt police attempted to evict some 80 families of tenants of Saigal agriculture farm in Dera Changran who had been working there since 1969. The tenants and their families had no option but to hold protest and block the GT Road.

He said the police first used teargas to disperse the protesters and then opened fire, resulting in death of a passer-by, Muhammad Arif. Instead of taking any action against the police officers responsible for the killing, the police registered an FIR against All Pakistan Trade Union Federation (APTUF) organising secretary Ghulam Dastigir Mehboob, along with 31 tenants and 200 unknown people, he deplored.

APTUF secretary general Safdar Hussain said despite statements of three brothers of the deceased Arif before a magistrate that neither Ghulam Dastagir nor any of his family members or tenant had anything to do with the murder, the police arrested three sons of Dastgir, along with six women and 10 tenants.

“Mr Dastagir is 72 year old and his only fault was that he openly expressed solidarity with the protesting tenants. It was Muridke Cantt DSP Shahid Niaz who shot at and killed Arif and implicated Mr Dastagir and others in the murder case,” he alleged.

PWC Senior Vice-President Yousuf Baloch urged the Punjab chief minister to order an impartial inquiry into the killing of Arif. He rapped registration of cases under ATA against rights activists.