HYDERABAD, Jan 13: Activists of Sindh Punjabi Students Association (SPSA) on Sunday staged a demonstration outside the press club in protest against the arrest of Abid Arain, the president of the Jhuddo chapter of the association.

SPSA leaders Jabir Arain, Qamaruzzaman and Tanvir Jatt said that Arain’s only crime was that he was a staunch supporter of Pakistan People’s Party. Police had unleashed a rein of terror on PPP supporters at the instigation of PML following the assassination of Ms Benazir Bhutto, they said.

They said that Arain had nothing to do with the incidents of loot, arson and vandalism sparked in the wake of the great tragedy, neither was he nominated in any FIR.

HCCI: Hyderabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Haji Mohammad Yaqoob has requested the prime minister to give compensation to the business community and direct the State Bank of Pakistan not to charge markup on loans till the rehabilitation of trade and industry.

He asked the caretaker Prime Minister Mohammadmian Soomro during a recent meeting with him at the Governor's House in Karachi that he should also direct the insurance companies to finalise claims of the insured industrial units, which were damaged during Dec 27 violence. He said that the business community felt an acute sense of insecurity following the brutal murder of former prime minister and suggested giving licenses to the traders and industrialists to carry arms, establishment of permanent police check-posts on the entry and exit points of the city.