PoK: Conflict arises between traders, local administration in GB over advertisement boards

The local businessmen in Pakistan and the local administration conflicted in the Jatial city of Gilgit Baltistan because of the city’s action against private advertisement boards.

However, contrary to the general practice in these cases, the local business owners have claimed that they were not informed or noticed in any form before any such action, Markhor, a local news organisation from Gilgit Baltistan, reported.

Raising their voice against the administration’s actions, the business owners organised a protest demanding an immediate halt to the confiscation drive.

The protestors also highlighted that the administration has been imposing extraordinarily high fines for releasing their boards.

While criticising the action, one trader said, “The government has now fallen to sheer hooliganism, and they are not ready to listen to us. And they have not given us any notice before these actions. Each of the confiscated boards cost us 70 to 80 thousand. If notice had been given to us, we would have removed all these boards ourselves.”

The trader further said that most of these boards were not even placed on government property; they were in our own shops. “They are saying that these boards are without NOC certificates, but all of these certificates were not on their land; they were in our shops. Hence, removing them is totally illegal.”

Another trader complained that the board that they had taken from my shop was not theirs and was his board, adding that it was not even on their land.

“I had specifically put on top of my own shop. What sort of condition is this? They are now stopping us from promoting our business in our own shops. Tomorrow, they will say we cannot open our shops. The board of my shop was standing two feet away from even the footpath. The ongoing officer says that we need to contact the district collector, what can we do? They are also destroying public property by doing this,” he said.

While pointing out an electrical pole, he said that they have now damaged this pole, and this supports a wire of 11 thousand volts.

“Who will be responsible if someone is hurt or gets killed? And if these issues are not resolved, then we will do an even bigger protest soon.”

However, some businessmen claimed that all the action from the administration’s side was to gain revenue from their fines.