As Pakistan faces its worst-ever flour crisis, stampedes have been reported in several areas like Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and Sindh provinces. In one such incident, a father of seven in Sindh’s Mirpurkhas district died near the commissioner’s office outside the Gulistan-e-Baldia Park where two mini trucks were selling flour.
As per the police, the man identified as Harsingh Kolhi fell on the road during the hustle and was trampled upon by the surrounding people. Kolhi’s family sat outside the Mirpurkhas Press Club for almost five hours and left after the police assured them of action against those responsible. However, an FIR has not yet been registered in the incident.
In another incident, three women, including a minor girl, were injured as they were crushed upon by a crowd after a stampede broke out outside a flour mill in Shaheed Benazirabad’s Sakrand town, The Express Tribune reported.
People spend hours getting subsidised bags of flour already in short supply in the market. Amid the chaos and clashes over food, Balochistan’s food minister Zamarak Achakzai said the wheat stock in the province has “completely ended”. Achakzai noted Balochistan needed 400,000 sacks of wheat and warned the crisis could intensify.
The Balochistan food minister said Punjab CM Parvez Elahi had committed to sending complete stock but did not fulfill his promise. He added that the province was 85 per cent dependent on Punjab and Sindh for wheat and that both provinces imposed a ban on wheat exports.
Achakzai was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune, “Out of 200,000 sacks of wheat, 10,000 sacks have been received.” He added, “They had requested Punjab CM to send 600,000 sacks.”
Meanwhile, a bag of 20 kg flour is being sold for Rs 3,100 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Rs 2,800 in Quetta due to the government’s failure to control the price of the staple. Flour is being sold at Rs 140 per kg to Rs 160 per kg in Karachi. A 10 kg flour bag is being sold at Rs 1,500 per kg in Islamabad and Peshawar.
Mills owners in Punjab have increased flour prices to Rs 160 per kg whereas a 15kg private bag of flour has gone up to Rs 2,155. The flour crisis in Punjab can be attributed to the miscalculation of imported grain requirements by the provincial governments and the Shehbaz Sharif-led PML(N) government’s delay in purchasing from other countries.
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