Prime Minister’s Special Representative for Interfaith Harmony and Middle East Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi on Sunday asked the state institutions to crackdown against hoarders and profiteers across the country. In an exclusive interview with APP, Ashrafi who is also the chairman of Pakistan Ulema Council said the culprits involved in this unholy business should be taken to task as they instead of providing relief to the masses facing critical situation due to monsoon rains and flash floods, had created an artificial inflation in the country. He said they had multiplied the prices of daily use items over a night on the pretext of shortage of goods both in the retail and wholesale markets. He lamented that due to this unhealthy exercise, the daily use products had gone beyond the purchasing power of the common man. He urged the business community to sell the things on nominal profit as it would also be a kind of help of the people under crisis due to flooding situation across the country. Ashrafi further said the torrential rains and flash floods turned into the calamity due to our shortcomings as in last 75 years, we could neither build dams nor water reservoirs in the country. He proposed the political and religious leadership to focus on the relief activities keeping aside their personal interests approximately for three months. “We pay tribute to Pakistan Army and volunteers of religious organizations for the way they have served the flood victims and are doing so in the tremendous manners,” he added. He said Pakistan was grateful for humanitarian aid from the brother Islamic countries including Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Turkiye, Qatar and Iran besides United Kingdom, United States and European countries for the flood affected people of Pakistan.