Businessmen on Thursday termed the government's security alerts 'terrifying', saying that the advisories circulating on social media had widely disturbed trade and commercial activities in the country. The government's advisories that meant for its security departments are now frequently made public, which is more destructive than the terrorism itself, they said, adding that the 'fake' alerts continued to panic the customers and traders.
"Nearly Rs 2 billion of loss with scaling down about 60 percent business activities daily is the result of security alerts issued by the government regularly," Chairman All Karachi Tajir Ittehad, Atiq Mir told Business Recorder, saying that "the FIA should also monitor fake security alerts". Slamming the Sindh government, he said that there had been no security shield in any of the markets marked as terror prone in its alerts that rather created insecurity for buyers and sellers. "Confidential documents of security alerts are now widely circulating in public which have greater implications on trade and society at large," he said.
He rejected the existing system of alerts issuance by the government as 'panic' breeder, saying that the trade would always need a safe and peaceful environment to go on. "Under the continuing threat alerts, there is no place in the country for businesses," he showed shocking concerns, saying that "instead placing security shields, the government is terrifying public".
Atiq Mir said that there should be a limit to media both social and mainstream to show up such precautionary documents as a frequent popping up of advisories were always scary to the social out-goers. He also urged the ISPR to strict monitor advisories posted on social media tagged its official sign. "The ISPR cannot issue such unrealistic advisories and they must be fake," he added.
Expressing fear, he said that the government should keep its focus more on beefing up security and not on alerts. "The authorities should also ensure the internal advisories meant for official actions should not land in public domains anyway," he advised, saying that the advisories going into public hands was as bad as a terror attempt itself.
"This is the enemy's agenda to hit Pakistan economy through spreading insecurity with bomb blasts and rumors, which our media is perfectly carrying out inadvertently," the AKTI chairman said, adding that the public should also take courage to beat the threats by not spreading the alerts, which were mainly fake.