HARIPUR, March 20: The traders’ community has given a 24-hour deadline to the tehsil municipal administration to cancel the permit for holding an industrial exhibition in the city and threatened to demolish the stalls if the TMA failed to fulfil the demand by Monday morning. They issued the threat here on Sunday at a meeting of the All Traders Federation, Haripur, presided over by the federation’s president, Iftikhar Amin.

Sources said the TMA had signed an agreement with a private group from Faisalabad for holding an exhibition of different products, including textiles, shoes and cosmetics, for three months.

The meeting discussed the proposed industrial show and termed it a step to ruin local retailers who were experiencing a slump in trade owing to the falling purchasing power of consumers.

They believed the exhibition would have a negative affect on local economy and people would be made to buy substandard goods.

They accused the TMA of issuing permit for the exhibition in a shady manner and warned that if the permission was not cancelled by Monday morning, they would take out a protest procession and uproot all the stalls.