Prolonged power outage irks Karachiites

17 Jun, 2004

Karachiites continued to brave prolonged load-shedding on Wednesday as the KESC remained indifferent to the sufferings of the citizens.
A large number of complaints about frequent interruption in power supply from various localities of the city were reported, while badly hit areas included Malir, Lyari, Liaquatabad, Garden East, Gurumandir, North Nazimabad, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Clifton, Sindhi Muslim Society, etc were suffering untold miseries.
The electricity outage also aggravated the water supply situation in the affected areas as the local water pumping stations went off. People from different parts of the city complained that despite their repeated calls to KESC complaint centres no redress was provided to their problem.
It should be recalled that the unabated power failures has already created law and order situation in many parts of the city, and if the problem continues to be unattended it might take a serious turn.
On Saturday last, enraged at the prolonged power outage, the residents of Liaquatabad had taken to the streets and turned violent. In protest against KESC, they burned tyres, pelted moving vehicles with stones, and blocked roads. Assuming the gravity of the situation the local administration had to call out the law-enforcement agencies to tackle the deteriorating situation.
Only after two days, repeated electricity load-shedding sparked off power riots in Lyari on Monday, where the angry residents of the area who had to spend a sleepless night (on Sunday) owing to power outage, they took to the streets and attacked a KESC complaint centre. They also burned tyres, blocked roads, pelted stones and raised slogans against the KESC to register their protest against the KESC.

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