KARACHI: 3-day-long disruption triggers off power riots
By Arman Sabir
KARACHI, April 25: Violence broke out in several localities of Federal B Area on Sunday following prolonged power breakdown affecting Karimabad, Aliabad, Hussainabad and adjoining areas.
Disruption in power supply to these areas started on Friday and continued till Sunday evening with intermittent and prolonged breakdowns. Enraged citizens blocked Liaquatabad flyover and Shahrah-i-Pakistan on Sunday afternoon in protest against the prolonged power failures.
They assembled near the Karimabad section of the flyover and blocked several roads causing hours-long disruption in the flow of vehicular traffic on the vital thoroughfare. Some of the protesters deplored that the KESC had discontinued power supply to their localities five days back, whereas some others said they were experiencing the situation for the last three days.
Youths in different groups pelted moving vehicles with stones and burned old tyres in the middle of various road to disrupt traffic flow and express their anguish over the KESC's apathy towards their pressing problem.
Despite efforts by police to dissuade the protesters from creating law and order situation, the angry mobs continued their protest for more than four hours. The police tossed teargas shells to disperse them, but the protesters turned violent and some of them pelted police with stones.
The town nazim intervened to restrain police from continuing the shelling, one of the protesters said. A senior police official claimed that the police had managed to bring the situation under control by persuading people to end their protest and assuring them that power supply would restored as soon as possible. However, there were reports of sporadic incidents of violence in different areas of Gulberg Town continuing till late in the night.
Owing to the disturbances, police diverted traffic either towards Gulshan-i-Iqbal or North Nazimabad from the Aisha Manzil intersection at one end and from Liaquatabad at the other.
A dejected consumer said that power supply to his area remained suspended for hours but the KESC did nothing to restore it. "We approached the KESC's regional office, but the officials there turned a deaf ear to our desperate plea."
In the evening, officials at the regional office in Gulberg reportedly locked the office and fled after receiving reports that an enraged group of consumers was heading towards the office in protest against the prolonged power failure. A little later, the protesters attacked the office with stones, local residents said.
Narrating the cause of the disruption in power supply, a KESC official stated that one of the transformer in Federal B Area had gone out of order on Friday and was repaired by Saturday evening following which power supply to certain affected areas was restored.
He said that another transformer, feeding power through the Liaquatabad grid to Hussainabad and Aliabad areas also went out of order on Saturday. He maintained that the repair work was in progress and power supply would hopefully be restored by midnight Sunday.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the city government said: "Some miscreants among the people protesting against power failures, caused damaged to different objects placed by the CDGK along the Karimabad, Aisha Manzil, and Water Pump roundabouts and traffic islands for beautification." Pointing out that the loss was suffered by citizens of the city, he blamed a particular group for the rampage.
