TAXILA: Scores of traders, their employees and family members on Sunday staged a sit-in against authorities for sealing their shops on the charge of “subletting” their shops in violation of the allotment agreement.

Carrying placards and banners inscribed with different slogans, the shopkeepers staged a sit-in on Museum Road near the office of vice president of the cantonment board.

Protesters were of the view that there are around 32 cantonment boards across the country and investors get properties especially shops on 99 years lease from these boards and almost all have sublet these shops. However, nowhere else were any shops sealed, the shopkeepers said, adding that by utilising colonial powers inherited from British policymakers, officials are depriving bread and butter from 66 families and leading them to starvation.

Retired Col Kazim Raza, while expressing solidarity with the aggrieved shopkeepers, termed the act of the cantonment board “discriminatory”.

He appealed to the authorities concerned that keeping in view the high inflation and poor economic condition of the working class, the shopkeepers would be allowed to run their businesses on humanitarian grounds. Commenting on the issue, a spokesman for the cantonment board said 164 shops located in the garrison city were owned by the cantonment board. These shop owners sublet the premises in violation of section 5 of the agreement which states “not to assign, sublet, transfer or part with the possession of the said building or any part thereof, or any of right or interest therein under any circumstances without written sanction of the executive officer Taxila”.

The spokesman further added that 66 shopkeepers were issued notices over violation of this section for subletting their shops in December 2021 and July 20022 and subsequently the shops were sealed.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2022