ISLAMABAD: Business centres across the city remained deserted on Tuesday as traders observed a strike to protest the Islamabad administration’s orders to shops to close by 8pm, marriage halls by 10pm and restaurants by 11pm to conserve electricity.

“Our protest was not to grind any political axe but to air our community’s real concerns,” said Muzzamil Hussain Sabri, President of the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, happy at the response to the chamber’s call for strike.

Also read: Shops to shut down by 8pm in Islamabad, Punjab: CCE

“Even the high-end Centaurus observed the strike,” he said.

While the traders may have driven their point home that “unilateral decisions” won’t do, their strike put many citizens of Islamabad to discomfort.

Mr Mohammad Zafar, a government employee, was driving to his office when the accelerator cable of his car broke. “After great hassle, I found a taxi driver who agreed to tow me to a workshop in the Melody Market but everything was closed there,” he told Dawn.

Since it was early in the morning, he waited for the businesses to open only to learn about the strike hours later.

“I went to the auto market in G-7 by bus where luckily a shop was open. I bought the accelerator cable and was thinking of spending another Rs500 on towing my car to the G-7 market to get it fixed when the shopkeeper suggested it would be cheaper to take the mechanic to G-6 to do that.

But the good advice saved him just Rs100 as he paid the mechanic Rs400 and had to drive him back to G-7 too.

Like Mr Zafar, a lot others too suffered the strike as even medical stores remained closed on the day.

President of Super Market Welfare Association Sarfraz Mughal while talking to Dawn said many citizens prefer to buy medicines only from two well known medical stores of Super Market to ensure quality of drugs.

“All their customers visiting the two stores found them closed throughout the day on Tuesday and went back frustrated. A woman was heard cursing the government. She must have urgently needed some medicine,” he said.

Mr Mughal found the 8pm shutter-down order “illogical” as many people reach home from their workplaces at 7pm and then go out for shopping. “Last week a customer came to the KFC in the Super Market with a woman just before 11pm and was so enraged at being told that they could not be served that he beat up the manager of the outlet,” he said, adding that the incident was reported to the police.

“It is funny that businesses are under orders to shut down at 8pm but Metro Bus Stations on the Jinnah Avenue burn bright all night when the bus service is even not operational,” said Mr Mughal.

If the government cannot supply electricity, it should allow the businesses to run generators, he suggested.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2015

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