FAISALABAD, June 3: Eight people, including four labourers, sustained serious injuries when two multi-storeyed book centres collapsed in Aminpur Bazaar here on Thursday.

The construction work was going on in a book shop - Maktaba Danish - when its adjacent multi-storeyed shops - Friends Book Depot and Ali Book Sellers caved in with a big bang. The labourers, owners of the book depots and two customers were inside the shops during the mishap.

The area people, Elite force teams, the Civil Defence squad and the shopkeepers hastened to the spot and took part in the rescue operation. After making hectic efforts, they recovered injured from the debris.

They were identified as labourers Kareemullah (40), Yousaf (65), Azam (50), Aslam (45), customers Hassan Aslam (39) and Manzoor (37), and shopkeepers Ismail (36) and Abdul Jabbar (30). They were shifted to the Allied Hospital where their condition was stated to be out of danger.

Eyewitnesses said that owners of Maktaba Danish were digging out their shop to construct a basement without providing pillars under the neighbouring shops. No official of the Tehsil Municipal Administration (City) or the district government came to the spot despite over three hours of the rescue operation.

TMA Taxes: The Faisalabad Foundry and Engineering Industries Group has threatened to launch a protest movement if the Tehsil Municipal Administration (city) fails to withdraw the 300 per cent increase in taxes on the local units.

In a statement here on Thursday, FFEIG president Iftikhar Ahmad and secretary-general Mohammad Afzal said the TMA (city) had enhanced different taxes without any justification.

They claimed that the TMA had invited objections and proposals on the proposed taxes, and the relevant quarters filed a number of suggestions and rejected the increase in taxes.

They said Tehsil City Nazim Mumtaz Ali Cheema had convened a meeting of industrialists, but he himself failed to attend the same. The TMA functionaries who later held a meeting with the owners of industrial units refused to listen to their complaints. They announced that the industrialists would not pay the heavy taxes imposed by the TMA.