6th day of textile bandh : Shirt-less protest by traders

Hyderabad: Textile traders, who launched an indefinite stir last week demanding rollback of Value Added Tax (VAT), organised a semi-nude protest in the State capital on Thursday. Clad in white vests and holding banners, cloth merchants held a bike rally from Patel Market in Old City to Dharna Chowk. Around thousand traders took part in the protest and demanded the State government to withdraw its decision to impose tax on textiles. Else the Congress party should be prepared to face the wrath of cloth merchants and their families in the next general elections, warned the traders. It may be recalled that close to one-lakh textile traders in the entire State have downed their shutters from March 9 onwards.