KOHAT: The decade-long tussle between the tehsil municipal administration (TMA) and owner of a private fruit and vegetable market here has intensified after the closure of Taj Marriage Hall where the market has been shifted after its sealing in violation of the Peshawar High Court’s stay order.

The tehsil municipal regulation officer, Idrees Khan, on Wednesday also sealed the marriage hall where the private Shahbaz Gul Fruit and Vegetable Market had been shifted after its closure last week.

The prices of fruit and vegetable registered significant increase after closure of the market as the shopkeepers and handcart owners have to buy edibles from the government-run fruit and vegetable market located miles away from the city centre.

Showing papers, Shahbaz Gul told this correspondent that the Peshawar High Court had given a stay that the government should not interfere in business of the private market. He also said that the TMA had no justification to shut a marriage hall.

He said that the court had given a verdict in favour of running a private market in 2013 and the TMA had also issued a license in 2015. He alleged that he was being teased and forced to pay bribe.

The president of the private market, Yousuf Khan, said that they were being forced to shift to the government-run market. He said that the wholesale dealers were happy in the private market and did not want to shift to the government market where, according to him, shops were not being auctioned to the businessmen, but to property dealers.

He said that the private market located in the city was a blessing both for the people and shopkeepers compared to the government market which was miles away on Bannu road and still incomplete.

Shahbaz Gul said that TMA wanted to close his market due to failure of the government-run market where shops had been rented out to irrelevant persons who were selling them for a huge price of Rs3 million.

He claimed that the government market lacked cold storages and other facilities. He said that earlier at a jirga with the deputy commissioner, the TMA said that minimum requirement of land for the market was 35 kanals where that of his was 30 kanals. “As I owned a large piece of land around the market I included 20 more kanals in it,” he said.

Mr Gul said that he was being teased on flimsy grounds though he had been paying Rs1 million tax annually for the last two years.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2019