The Gujarat Police was forced to do baton charge on textile merchants on Monday as they allegedly pelted stones towards cops during protest against recently implemented Goods & Services Tax (GST) at South Gujarat town Surat.
The textile traders claimed that they staged peaceful protest and chanted slogans for the removal of GST and in support of bringing in alternate simple tax near Ring road. However Surat Police Commissioner Satish Sharma blamed on the protesters saying that the police had to resort to baton charge as stone pelting was initiated from a group a protesters in which a policeman injured.
GST Sangharsh Samiti, a body formed by the textile traders to oppose the imposition of five per cent GST on textiles, blamed on local Member of Parliament CR Patil saying that the police highhandedness came at behest of Patil who failed to persuade agitating textile traders to wind up the strike on Sunday. The traders have given indefinite bandh against GST.
According to sources following the meeting with MP Patil some traders had decided to open their shops and the traders divided in two groups. Opposition Congress party too jumped into the issue as senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel said that the baton charge on traders was nothing but a planned effort to suppress the agitation.
Many textile traders have not registered for the new GST regime and anticipating that the Centre would do something in order to save the thriving textile industry not only in Surat but across the nation. According to them their should be no GST on cloths. They, however, opined that the Government should impose GST on textile products instead.
Known as the commercial capital of South Gujarat the city is one of the biggest textile hubs in the country. Apart from silk and cotton mills, Surat is the biggest centre of man-made fibre in India. There are over 41000 power-loom and nearly 400 dyeing and printing units in and around the city with the overall annual turnover of more than five billion rupees.