Armed guards protect tomato farms from thieves as prices skyrocket

In the past few days, the news platforms were dominated by the chronicles of robbers plundering reserves of chilghozas (pine nuts) and now it seems the focus has shifted elsewhere.

After tomato prices skyrocketed to Rs250-300 per kg in Karachi, innovative thieves robbed tomato farms in Sindh’s Badin.

Following the shift in focus in the field of thievery, cultivators started deploying armed men to guard the tomato farms in the area.

Read here: Twitter stews Hafeez Sheikh over tomato price comment

Tomatoes in Karachi were being sold as high as Rs320 a kilo as of the weekend, doubling in rates from the previous week. Vendors and hawkers claimed that it was not their fault since wholesale prices had shot up significantly.

Last week it seemed as if Prime Minister Imran Khan's Finance Adviser, Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, was totally unaware of the ongoing sky-high tomato prices in the country's economic hub, Karachi.

In a recent media talk, Sheikh told a group of reporters that tomatoes were being sold as low as Rs17 a kilogramme in Karachi's vegetable markets.

Following the Adviser to the PM’s blithely unaware comments, social media users had a field day on Twitter regarding the issue.