QUETTA, Oct 25: Flour prices in Balochistan registered a sharp increase on Thursday after owners of flour mills in the province went on an indefinite strike in protest against police raids and sealing of some flour mills.

Police had raided in recent days various flour mills in the Quetta Industrial Estate on the orders of the Supreme Court and sealed eight mills on the charge of hoarding and stopped four other mills from functioning.

Announcing the strike, the Balochistan Flour Mills Owners Association said that the mills in the province would not work until all sealed mills were reopened.

Criticising the police action, association’s president Abdul Wahid Breach said that there was no justification for the raids.

He denied the charge of hoarding and said every flour mill needed at least 2,000 bags of wheat for meeting the daily demand. He said the mills which had been sealed had only 2,000 to 4,000 bags in stock. Some of them even had less stock than their daily requirement.

Wahid Breach said negotiations between mill-owners and the authorities concerned had not yielded any result and the government had not opened any sealed mill. He said as a result of the crisis a 100kg bag of flour was selling for Rs2,300.

Balochistan food department secretary Azam Baloch also termed the raids illegal. He said that police should have consulted the food department before conducting the raids.

“There was no justification for raids on flour mills in Quetta as they did not have excessive stock of wheat,” he added.