On a call of All-Party Conference (APC), a complete shutter-down strike was observed here on Monday against worst electricity and gas load- shedding in the hometown of Benazir Bhutto, slain chairwoman of Pakistan Peoples Party. All shops, bazaars, shopping centres, petrol pumps, pushcart vendors and medical stores owners closed their routine business and participated in the protest.
The citizens gathered at the Municipal roundabout. The attendance at the government offices and schools was badly affected as all kinds of transport remained off the roads and busy areas wore a deserted look. The agitating residents took out a rally which marched through main roads and reached near Agani Petrol Pump, where participants staged a sit-in that lasted for six hours despite sweltering heat.
Due to road blockade, all kinds of traffic from both Sukkur to Larkana and Larkana to Sukkur routes came to a standstill. Rahmat Morio, Khalid Memon, Ghulam Hyder Narejo, Javed Bhutto, Mushtaque Kumbhar, Maulana Abdul Qudoos Panhwar, Naimat Narejo, A D Bhutto, Aijaz Leghari, Sahab Khan Shaikh and others of the APC were leading the protestants. The protestors were holding placards, banners and flags of their respective parties in their hands and were chanting slogans against the minister of state Abid Sher Ali and the authorities of the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) Limited.
Speaking to the protestors, aforementioned leaders said that their protest would continue as long as their legitimate demands were accepted. They said that when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif openly declared that 6-hour load shedding would be carried out in cities and 8-hour in towns and villages then why Sepco and SSGC authorities were resorting to inhuman outages ranging from 14-hour to 20-hour on daily basis.