SWABI: The price of a 20-kilogramme wheat flour bag has risen to Rs2,000 from Rs1,600 since the start of the new financial year, consumers complained here on Monday.

Similarly, the price of 80kg wheat flour bag has jumped from Rs6,400 to Rs8,015, registering an increase of Rs1,615 per bag. The traders and wheat flour dealers in the district headquarters told Dawn that they could not rule out more increase in price of wheat flour.

Liaq Khan, former president of traders’ body, said shopkeepers just passed the price increase to consumers. He said flour mills had increased prices of all varieties of flour.

However, consumers said shopkeepers were fleecing them without any let-up. They said if price of a commodity went up by Rs10, traders charged them Rs20.

Meanwhile, growers said they were forced to sell wheat at throwaway rates, and now the mills owners had started increasing the wheat flour price.

Owners of flour mills said the government had imposed withholding tax on them in the budget 2024-25.

KILLER ARRESTED: The police have arrested a man for killing his wife.

In a statement issued here on Monday, the police said Sajib Badshah, who belongs to Jalbai village of Chota Lahor, had killed his wife on July 1 after he was released from jail on bail. The police said Sajib was jailed for one year for murdering his maternal uncle, Thanidar Shah, 16 months ago. Later, they said he had abducted his uncle’s wife and forced her to marry him.

The statement said after shooting his wife, Sajib had also got himself injured, and later lodged an FIR against the woman’s brother and a son for murdering her and injuring him.

The statement, however, said the police’s investigation proved that both the brother of the woman, Imran Khan, and her son, Yasir Khan, were innocent. The police also recovered the pistol used in the woman’s murder.

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2024