LAHORE: The representatives of major trade bodies and associations of the country who gathered to discuss the future protest mode against withholding tax on all bank transactions, once again showed disunity on Friday as the meeting of their 40-member supreme council was disrupted after ‘harsh’ arguments and ‘scuffles’.

Two major factions of the All Pakistan Anjuman-i-Tajiran (APAT), Naeem Mir group and Khalid Pervaiz group, went into arguments during the meeting, insiders told Dawn.

They said both the groups exchanged harsh words and levelled allegations against each other and Khalid Pervaiz boycotted the meeting while Naeem Mir group blamed his group for leaving the meeting deliberately.

APAT meeting disrupted after ‘scuffles’ between factions

Abdur Razzaque Babar, the central secretary general of APAT (Khalid Pervaiz group), said the other group members had started quarreling and abusing their members during the meeting and as a result, they (Khalid group) had to leave the venue.

“The Naeem Mir group has its own agenda and is B-team of the government,” claimed Babar.

Naeem Mir, on the other hand, said Khalid Pervaiz group members left the meeting and made it impossible to reach an agreement regarding the protest against the tax.

He claimed consultation between the two groups to hold the supreme council meeting was in progress and it was likely that the meeting would take place on Saturday (today).

Both the groups remained divided over the country-wide strike and observed shutdown on separate dates in August.

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had imposed 0.6 pc tax on non-filers from July 1, 2015, and later reduced it temporarily for three months through a presidential ordinance following a series of protests by the business community.

The traders’ supreme council was constituted with 18 members each from both the groups and four traders from Khyber Pakhthunkhwa to coordinate between the factions and to jointly plan the protest mode.

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2015

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