KARACHI: The. Governor of West Pakistan, Air Marshal Nur Khan, has ordered the local administration to study the hawkers’ problems in detail, it was officially announced here yesterday [Nov 9].

An official handout, issued after a meeting of various representatives of the Hawkers Association with the Governor at the Governor’s House ... said: “While the hawkers pleaded that they should be allowed to get back to their old places, irrespective of the fact that a large number of them had already been settled at alternate spaces, the Governor firmly suggested that it could not be done.” The Governor, however, reminded them that it would not be correct to assume that a hawker had a right to occupy a place at his own will and could not be dislodged. The principle, he said, could not be held valid because the number of hawkers was not static. It was on the increase and would be complicating things.

Referring to the observation by a hawkers’ representative that some of them had gone on foot to Lahore to see the Governor, he said that there was no need to dramatise things. He was always ready to see them and would continue to meet them till he was able to say something final with respect to their problem.

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2019