FAISALABAD, May 27: Traders and industrialists have threatened to go on strike for an indefinite period in protest against the police for its failure to control crime in the city.

This was decided at separate meetings of the All Pakistan Sizing Industries Association, All Pakistan Cotton Power looms Association, All Pakistan Cloth Exporters Association and Anjuman Tajiran Faisalabad held here on Thursday.

The trade leaders said that despite their all out cooperation with the police, the incidents of dacoity, theft and robbery in houses and god owns had become an order of the day.

They threatened that if the police failed to arrest the crime graph in the district, they would be left with no option but to close down their factories, industrial units and shops for an indefinite period.

Yarn dealers, they said, had observed a one-day strike in the city against the police, but no positive measures had so far been taken to arrest culprits involved in heinous crimes.

During the last one month, they claimed that outlaws had looted cash, cloth and yarn worth Rs40 million from different industrial units and god owns, but the police high ups were playing the role of a silent spectator. Meanwhile, DPO Muhammad Amin Wains directed the SHOs and patrolling staff to round up the gangsters and suspects from their respective areas.

Presiding over a meeting here at the local Police Lines, the DPO asked the police officers to intensify the security arrangements in their areas and check the activities of suspects. The DPO suspended Jaranwala SHO Majeed Gujjar from service on the charge of failure in arresting the crime rate.