KARACHI, Aug 13: With public transport off the roads and major businesses closed, life in the city remained paralysed on Saturday during the strike called by Sindhi nationalist parties and backed by different political and religious organisations against the restoration of the local government system of 2001 in the province.

Though retail markets situated in thickly populated districts of the city remained open, major commercial centres in the southern part of the metropolis were closed for the day.

Though business leaders maintained that they did not support the strike call, they termed it a ‘complete shutdown’ due to what they called the ‘fear factor’ that forced them to close markets.

“We did not issue any advisory to our market organisers in different areas,” said Ateeq Meer of the All-Karachi Tajir Ittehad — a recently-formed association that represents more than 500 retail and wholesale markets.

“But obviously the situation turned violent on Friday evening that convinced the traders to stay away from their regular business.”

He said all the major business and commercial centres remained closed, though retail markets in different neighbourhoods stayed open.

The Saturday closure of the markets undermined business in many ways, he observed.

“Strikes on any day cause losses between Rs2.75 billion and Rs3 billion. But today it caused a much bigger loss in three different ways.

It was a weekend and every weekend business remains a little higher than on weekdays.

Similarly, it is the Eid season, which has just picked up, and lastly today is Aug 13 when sales jumped extraordinarily a day before the Independence Day celebrations,” added Mr Meer.

A man was burnt to death and four others, including a minor boy, injured in one of the several arson attacks in the city as violence broke out late on Friday in parts of the city ahead of the Saturday strike.

At least 11 vehicles were torched in the arson attacks in almost every district of the metropolis since Friday evening till Saturday.

In the morning, the city roads wore a deserted look as transporters had already announced that they would not bring their vehicles on roads on security grounds.

“It was not about supporting or opposing anyone’s cause behind the strike,” said Irshad Bukhari, the president of the Karachi Transport Ittehad.

“We are here to do business and the key to successful business is protection of your stakes and assets in the first place and the same strategy we adopted in this case. We were very concerned about the security of our vehicles as well as of transporters. Our fears turned true with nearly a dozen buses set on fire within 12 hours.”

He said in such a volatile situation, the transporters would not run their vehi-cles on the days of strikes called by any party for any cause.

In 2011 alone, he added, the transporters had lost more than 100 buses in different episodes of violence.