Overview
- The shutter-down strike, held on Thursday, Sept. 3, closed hundreds of markets and petrol pumps in Karachi and prompted partial shutdowns in other cities while many areas in Punjab and Balochistan stayed open.
- A government delegation met Jamaat-e-Islami leaders in Mansoorah and both sides agreed to form joint expert committees to draft proposals to reduce the petroleum development levy and propose consumer relief.
- JI said its sit-ins in provincial capitals will continue and that the party may escalate the campaign with long marches or expanded protests if the committees do not deliver acceptable measures.
- Major traders’ groups, lawyers’ associations and some business bodies backed the strike, increasing economic disruption and adding political pressure on the federal government to show rapid, practical steps.
- The dispute centers on the petroleum levy and capacity payments to independent power producers, charges that JI says raise household fuel and electricity costs and that the government says must be weighed against international oil prices and macroeconomic limits.