Industrial activity remains paralysed

Industrial activities in all the five industrial estates of the city remained paralysed on Friday on the call of religious parties to protest against what they believe are plans by the government to change the country's blasphemy law.
Public transport remained off the road while commuters and citizens who travel in public transport failed to reach their workplaces. Routine life was suspended as shops and markets throughout the city remained closed and traffic remained thin, with public transport absent.
Protest rallies and demonstrations were carried out against any proposed amendments to the blasphemy law. Protesters demonstrating on the Mauripur Road blocked the intersection and suspended traffic. Protesters, carrying sticks and chanting anti-government slogans, blocked traffic by setting tyres on fire in Karachi's Shirin Jinnah Colony. However, some industrial units, which remained operative, also worked with depleted staff. Only those units operated which either have their own transport or the workers are living in close vicinity.
Chairman of Korangi Association of Trade and Industry (KATI), Johar Ali Qandhari, said that almost all industrial units remained closed in that industrial estate on Friday in support of cause for which the strike call was given. He said that non-availability of public transport and closure of petrol pumps played a big role to keep the industrial units closed.
Condemning steep rise in POL prices, he termed it stab in the back of country's economy. He said the trade and industry had unanimously rejected the government move. He said the government is doing nothing, leading the economy towards disaster.
Industrialists from North Karachi , Federal B Area, Landhi and Site industrial areas said that entire industrial units in these industrial estates remained closed. They said that non-availability of transport also paralysed dispatching export orders and shipment of goods to upcountry. The government has assured the parliamentarians that amendments would not be made in blasphemy law. Leaders of Tehreek-i-Namoos-i-Risalat (TNR) undertook a mass contact campaign on Thursday so as to make Friday strike against the proposed amendments to the blasphemy law successful.