SHEIKHUPURA/TOBA TEK SINGH
A large number of labourers of two textile mills held a protest demonstration and blocked the traffic on Faisalabad Road due to non-payment of their salaries and other dues.
The labourers led by their leaders Safdar Ali and Usman stopped their routine works in the factories and came on the roads, chanting slogans against the factories’ administrations. The union leaders while addressing the protesters said the industrialists were sucking their blood without giving salaries and other dues due to which they have face starvation.
They termed it violation of their fundamental rights and a criminal act. They warned the both industries should release their dues within one week otherwise they would hold province wide strike.
SUICIDES: A 19-year-old boy and 22-year-old girl committed suicide due to domestic affairs in Narang and Muridke respectively. In the first incident, Farooq demanded some amount from his father, on his refusal he committed suicide after taking poisonous pills. In Muridke Maria was reprimanded by her mother over some mistake and the girl after being upset from her mother behavior hanged herself with the ceiling fan and ended life.
On the call of Anjuman Karyana Merchants Association in Toba Tek Singh, shopkeepers observed complete strike over the imposing of “unjustifiable” fines on them by price magistrates for selling vegetable ghee at exorbitant prices.
Earlier, its president Muhammad Amjad had announced to observe strike against the district administration. He had claimed that ghee mills supplied them ghee at Rs 135 per kg pack but administration was forcing them to sell it at not more than Rs 110 per kg which was not possible.
During the protest, Anjuman Tajran secretary general Mian Mohsin Idrees told reporters that shopkeepers were being fined Rs3,000 each if they sold ghee or oil at mills rates. He announced that if the imposition of fines on grocery shopkeepers continued, they will be forced to issue call of complete shutter down strike all over the district.