Fruit Boycott Campaign now backed by Commissioner Karachi

The three-day fruit boycott campaign that kicked off on social media to protest against the escalating prices of commodities in Ramazan, now officially supported by the Karachi Commissioner Ejaz Ahmed Khan.

After the campaign initiated through WhatsApp on Wednesday night, Commissioner Ejaz Ahmed issued a statement on Thursday backing the whole idea of campaign and urged citizens to refrain from buying fruits from Friday till Sunday.

He stated that this step can help the administrative measures in pressurizing the fruit vendors and suppliers to cut down the unfairly high prices being witnessed since the beginning of Ramazan.

The joint efforts made by the administration and the conscientious citizens would help address issues direly affecting the masses, it added according to The News.

So far, the Karachi administration has imposed a fine of Rs 926,500 on 297 retailers in its campaign to curb unreasonable rates in the areas including Saddar, Civil Lines, Garden, SITE, Baldia, Firozabad, Jamshed Quarters, Gulshan e Iqbal, Gulzar e Hijri, Liaqutabad, Nazimabad, North Nazimabad, Orangi, Baldia, Bin Qasim, Ibrahim Hyderi, New Karachi, Landhi, Korangi and Model Colony.

The social media campaign is in full swing and determined to sustain the boycott from June 2 to June 4 in order to bring the prices down to a normal level.

Karachiites have taken the campaign on twitter:

 

#FruitBoycott plzzz people's prove these three days u r a united nation

— Kunzal eman cheema (@CheemaEman) June 2, 2017

 

#FruitBoycott

Be mature nation, its awesome strick to boycott all product whose price over charge.

Only step go'es Up pic.twitter.com/vO4T07bF35

— Shafqat Ghafoor (@shafqat_ghafoor) June 2, 2017

 

We will not take fruits until this mafia stop its economic terrorism #FruitBoycott pic.twitter.com/5vsm6lKjnF

— Amna Fazail (@AmnaFazail) June 2, 2017

But there are also social media users who think the idea is not suitable as it will make the poor fruit sellers more vulnerable to poverty in Ramazan.

 

I am not a part of the #FruitBoycott as it will affect the life of poor fruit sellers (wandering on the roads with their carts) very badly.

— M. Ubaid ur Rehman (@Ubaidrehman55) June 2, 2017

 

What a foolish act#FruitBoycott

— ???? (@usamakhan0170) June 2, 2017

 

#FruitBoycott is a stupid idea. Many poor people feed their children's by selling fruits. Go after big fishes not these poor people

— B I L A L K H A N (@Bilalkhan615) June 2, 2017

And then there were rebuttals:

 

U should also be concerned to poor Fruit Buyers who are definately more in number than sellers #FruitBoycott

— Mubasher Javed (@JaveedMubash) June 2, 2017

 

#FruitBoycott jo froot wale ghreeb hain wo 3 din mazdori kr lain aur wo bhi boycott karain.

— yasirjameel (@yasirjameel03) June 2, 2017

Apart from this civil campaign, a complaint cell has been established in the Agriculture Supply and Prices Department (Secretariat) where people can call to register their complaints about price hike. The phone numbers are 021-99211468 and 021-99211462.