In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, normal economical activities remained affected in Jammu, today, due to traders strike call against the proposed opening of 100 Reliance retail stores in Jammu.
A complete shutdown is being observed in Jammu call for which was given by Chamber of Commerce and Industry and was supported by twenty-five trade and industry lobbies besides sev-eral political parties.
Wearing black badges to protest ‘anti-traders’ policies, the business community assembled at vari-ous markets and Chamber house and raised slogans like ‘Jammu Ekta Zindabad’.
Several groups of traders under different ban-ners staged peaceful protests at their respective markets.
The protesters said that they are facing a wide range of issues that had been confronted by them after abrogation of special status of IIOJK but the latest trigger is reports of Reliance retail setting up 100 stores in Jammu.
Chamber of Commerce and Industry Jammu, President Arun Gupta said that the strike was aimed at pressurizing the administration of the territory to stop torturing the Jammu traders in one way or other.
“We appealed to everyone to observe peaceful bandh against issues related to chamber and com-merce.
We are thankful that bandh gets an over-whelming response all over the province, even from the areas where we least expected,” Gupta said.
“Many political parties extended support of Chamber Bandh and I would like to humbly appeal then to confine their protests within the issues raised by the traders,” Gupta said, apparently appealing political parties not to link traders’ issues with abro-gation of special status of the occupied territory.—KMS