HYDERABAD, Jan 11: The Pakistan Flour Mills Association, Sindh chapter, has given a three-day ultimatum to the Sindh government to remove the Thatta DCO and hold an inquiry against him by High Court judges for torturing a mill owner in the district.

They warned that if their demand was not meet all flour mill owners of Sindh would close their businesses on Tuesday.

A general body meeting to decide further course of action, they added.

Addressing a news conference at the press club here on Friday, the chairman of the association, Iqbal Daud, former chairman, Mumtaz Shaikh, former chairmen of Sindh chapter, Yousuf Kausar Bhatti and Haji Muneer Memon and over one dozen other mill owners said that on January 10 Thatta DCO Usman Panhwar along with a police squad raided the Peoples Flour Mills Dhabeji and Gharo Flour Mills and abused and tortured the mill owners.

The Peoples Flour Mills owner Shoaib Memon was seriously injured, they said.

Mr Iqbal said that Shoaib Memon had been admitted to the Aga Khan Hospital where his condition was serious.

He said a mill owners’ meeting on Friday decided to close their mills on Tuesday if the Thatta DCO was not suspended, an FIR was not registered against him and an inquiry was not held by the High Court judges.

He further demanded that the police squad that accompanied the DCO should also be suspended and an FIR be registered against them.

Answering a question as to why the mill owner had been tortured, Mr Daud said that the mill owners of Thatta had been directed by the DCO on January 9 to set up wheat flour stalls and while the stalls were being opening on the morning on Thursday, the DCO raided the mill and tortured Shoaib Memon for not establishing the stalls.

The leaders of the association said that there were 132 flour mills in the province and weekly quota of wheat was being issued to them by the food department on first of every month and added that the challans by the food department which had to be issued on Jan 7, were issued on Jan 8 for the second week.

They said that 4,000,000 bags of wheat were the total requirement of the province for one month but the floor mills were being issued only 1,500,000 bags per month.

They said that due to this, the mills remained operational only for four to five hours per day.

In other districts, the DCOs were holding meetings with the mill owners to evolve a strategy to meet the crisis but the Thatta DCO even did not care to take the mill owners into confidence, they said.

They were answerable only to the food department and made it clear that they will not allow the entry of any agency into mills unless an official of the food department was also present there.

Without assessing the requirements of the country, the government had exported wheat which had created crisis, they said.

They said in the open market, wheat was being sold at Rs2,200 per 100 kg bag and its cost of production was Rs24 a kg.

“How is it possible for the mill owners to sell the flour at the rate of Rs17 per kg under these circumstances,” they asked.

They further said surplus wheat was available with the Punjab province but its movement outside the Punjab had been banned.

They said that former prime minister Shaukat Aziz had been given a list of 50 hoarders but no action was taken against them because many of them were MNAs and influential politicians. A similar list has also been given to the incumbent prime minister but action is still awaited.

They said that the government has imported 15 million bags of wheat and if the quota of wheat of flour mills was increased by 35 per cent it would ease the situation as the next year’s crop would come in the market in March.