LAHORE: At least 1,000 milk-sellers of the city threw traffic out of gear for several hours on Monday outside the Punjab Assembly on The Mall to condemn the confiscation of milk and impounding of their vehicles by provincial food authority teams.

The protest which lasted about seven hours virtually clogged The Mall as police had to place barriers and divert traffic on other arteries.

Civil Lines Station House Officer Abid Rasheed said the protesters led by Chaudhry Muhammad Ali gathered at Faisal Chowk at around 11am and blocked The Mall completely after meeting with the Punjab Food Authority director general.

The SHO said the protesters demanded that the authority concerned should take samples of the milk to test its quality instead of confiscating the commodity from shops and on the roads.

Challenge standardisation requirements by food authority

The protesters also demanded the rates of their own on the pattern of Islamabad and Karachi.

They challenged the standardisation requirements by the authority, saying milk-sellers were being forced to bribe officials. They demanded abolishing the standardisation requirements.

The SHO said the protesters dispersed only after three MPAs Rana Sanaullah, Malik Nawaz and Rana Arshad intervened and announced forming a committee to resolve the issue between the two sides.

He said the protesters belonged to a newly-formed association led by Muhammad Ali as the original association led by Chaudhry Sohail was in favour of implementation of standardisation laws of the authority.

DIG (Operations) Dr Haider Ashraf said the milk-sellers, who were supposed to assemble at the Civil Secretariat, blamed food authority’s teams for harassing them and confiscating their vehicles without any justification even for two months.

The protesters demanded removal of the authority’s director general, alleging officials were minting money from milk-sellers under the name of quality checking.

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2014