RAWALPINDI: The Rawalpindi Central Traders Association has announced a protest on Murree Road on Monday against what it termed “artificial rates of edibles fixed by the District Price Committee, ‘unjustified sealing of shops, issuance of challans, and the discourteous attitude of officials of the Punjab Enforcement and Regulation Authority (Pera) towards shopkeepers”.

A meeting of representative trade organisations of Rawalpindi was held under the leadership of President of the Rawalpindi Traders Association Malik Shahid Ghafoor Paracha. Presidents of the Restaurant Association, Dairy Association, Chicken Retailers Association, Grocery Association, Meat Association, Nanbai Association and Furniture Association participated in the meeting.

It was unanimously decided to protest against what the participants described as the administration’s “misbehaviour, open bribery, illegal challans, unjustified sealing of shops in the name of price checking, cruel taxes, and the continuous humiliation of traders by Pera”.

The meeting expressed serious concern that government officials and departments responsible for guiding, facilitating and improving the trading system had started behaving like rulers. The officials who collect taxes from the business community and draw their salaries from the public exchequer, they said, had become a source of mental and financial distress for traders.

After the meeting, Rawalpindi Central Traders Association President Malik Shahid Ghafoor Paracha told Dawn that the rates fixed in the District Price Control Committee meeting were not practical. “All the rates of milk, curd, meat, chicken, pulses and rice in the list are fictitious and unrealistic,” he said, adding that shopkeepers purchase these items at higher rates and it is not possible for them to sell them at lower prices.

He said it was decided that on Monday, February 16, 2026, all traders’ organisations of Rawalpindi would stage a peaceful but full-scale protest by closing businesses on Murree Road. The basic aim of the protest, he said, was to send a clear message to the administration that the business community would no longer tolerate oppression, injustice and humiliation.

He said all organisations were of the view that traders are the backbone of the country’s economy, but are being pushed to the wall through illegal challans, sealing of shops and inhumane behaviour. If this trend does not change, he warned, the scope of the protest would be expanded and the responsibility would lie with the administration.

Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2026