KHYBER: The local traders and businessmen in Jamrud observed a shutdown on Tuesday in protest against the taxes, planned by the government to be imposed in the tribal region.
Shopkeepers suspended their business centers and under the banner of Anjuman-e-Tajeran, Jamrud took out a protest rally to Bab-e-Khyber where it turned into a public gathering.
The participants included volunteers of various political parties while carrying placards, inscribed with slogans against implantation of taxes.
Speaking on the occasion Head of the Trade Unions of Jamrud and Sakhi Pul Kashef Iqbal Afridi and Arbab Afridi, General Secretary Abdul Aziz, local leader of Jamiat Ullema-e-Islam Fazal(JUI-F) Said Kabeer Afridi,President of Zawan Koki Khel Ittehad Sanullah Afridi,Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf(PTI) and others categorically rejected the taxes and said it was equivalent to discourage business activities in the ex-tribal agencies.
The local traders had suffered a lot in the decades long militancy and forces operations and imposing of taxes is injustice to them, they remarked.
The government, they maintained, should redress the affected shopkeepers rather than to impose taxes on them, they added and said it would dishearten the businessmen.
They demanded the government to reconsider its decision of imposition of taxes on tribal traders and formulate pro-business policy in the merged tribal districts.
They threatened that if their demands were not addressed then they would jointly with traders of Malakand would initiate protest sit-in in front of Provincial Assembly Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and in Islamabad.
