Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The business of container owners has been badly affected due to the political conflict between the opposition and the government.

The government kept the containers for almost 76 to 90 hours on different roads and points of Lahore, Rawalpindi and Islamabad, to stop the protest of three opposition parties including Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Pakistan Awami Tehreek and Awami Muslim League that were held on Saturday.

But on the instructions of the government for approximately four to five days at different points of Lahore, Rawalpindi and Islamabad , the goods especially edible things that were loaded in these containers were either destroyed or the fragile items were broken.

The owners of these containers had to bear the loss of millions of rupees out of their own pocket as they could not get the fixed rents of their containers from the government.

Moreover, due to these containers, the public at large had to face many problems in moving freely. A woman and a child lost their lives in Rawalpindi and Lahore respectively as they could not reach hospitals due to closure of roads.

The owners of the containers said that first of all the government lifted their containers from the way, which were taking a variety of goods to different cities. They stopped these containers for almost four days in the hot and humid weather and all the vegetables, fruits, meat and dairy products that the containers were taking, were spoiled.

The government officials also mishandled these containers due to which many products in the containers were broken or damaged. Some of the containers were in the use of pharmaceutical companies to carry life saving drugs from one city to another, but due to their stoppage for four to five days, their air conditioners got out of order and some important and expensive medicines which need a certain temperature were destroyed.

The container owners said that on Sunday that without giving the payment, the government had ordered them to lift their containers from different roads and points of the three cities, at their own expense.

The federal government had also put some vacant containers on the roads which could be removed by 20 to 30 people and they were useless in preventing the path of the public processions.