ISLAMABAD, Apr 15 (DNA) : With the start of holy month of Ramazan, a large number of faithful were seen in various city markets and traditional deep-fried food shops for purchasing their favorite fried snacks like pakora, samosa and kachorees, ignoring the basic standard operating procedures (SOPs) like wearing face masks.

Like previous years, this year too the sale of traditional fried edibles such as samosas, kachorees and pakoras increases manifold as outlets selling fried food appear on every nook and corner of the cities to attract the buyers.

 “Only some customers are wearing protective face masks and most are not careful at all. This virus is very dangerous but people do not take SOPs implementation

seriously”, said a motorist while talking to a private news channel.

According to shopkeepers, every shop and stall that sells such traditional food items are enjoying huge crowed which starts as early as 4 pm around the office closing time.

The shop owners and vendors selling iftar snacks said they could not stop their customers from coming to their shops as this will hurt their business but mostly shopkeepers are requesting their customers for strict implementation of Covid SOPs.

A citizen also commented that various markets in capital were packed to capacity by ‘faithful’ with time getting close to iftari and vendors on roadside were creating traffic jam in congested localities with violating government Covid health guidelines.

It is unfortunate that the people are roaming around, avoiding the Covid health guidelines, said another motorist.

A vendor said that he had lost a large number of customers on first Ramazan due to implementing social distancing because customers did not wait and moved to the next shop if denied them services and asked them to wear mask first.

Another citizen said that mostly customers are not observing social distancing  and the shopkeepers are just concerned about earning money.

Severe rush of customers was witnessed on shops, said a citizen, adding, many sensible customers on the other hand are avoiding the long frustrating traffic jam and flooding crowd on these traditional shops as they prefer online eateries amid Coronavirus spike. 

“Fasting is beneficial but the things people tend to eat means they are not bothered about their health,” said a ENT specialist while lamenting the ignorance of public.

 He further said the use of excessive fried items could have a negative impacts on human health and foregoing safety measures will lead to a jump in infection rates.