KARACHI: Police on Sunday lobbed teargas cannisters into agitating residents of Hussainabad, Aliabad, and Karimabad areas where they lit bonfire, pelted moving vehicles with stones, and blocked Shahrah-e-Pakistan in protest against the prolonged power failures and the ineffectiveness of the KESC for failing to restore power supply for last three days.

Even though, five to six-hour long power failures in the metropolis have become a matter of routine, the KESC authorities failed to restore the power supply in Federal B Area Block 1, 2 and 3 (Karimabad, Hussainabad and Aliabad areas) even after a lapse of three days resulting in the outbreak of power riots.

As a result of the prolonged power breakdowns on Sunday afternoon, a large number of people, including youths and children, came out from their houses and blocked one of the busiest roads of the city Sharah-e-Pakistan.

A small group of the angry protestors pelted moving vehicles with stones and burnt tyres on the road resulting in suspension of vehicular traffic on the road. Angry protesters shouted slogans against the KESC management for failing to provide uninterrupted power supply to the area.

A heavy contingent of police reached the scene and tried to control the deteriorating situation. The residents, however, managed to calm down the enraged youths and afterwards begun a sit-in on the road.

The blockade of the Sharah-e-Pakistan continued for hours and led to one of the worst traffic jams as long queues of heavy traffic and cars were seen on the Liaqatabad fly-over, which were diverted from the Karimabad Roundabout to Ziauddin Chowrangi and other alternative routes.

After three to four hours of the blockade, police tried to disperse the protestors. Upon their refusal, police fired teargas shells into the protestors and tried to baton-charge the crowd. However, the management of Gulberg Town including Town Nazim Farooq Naimtullah intervened in the matter and stopped the police from using tear gas.

The enraged protestors raised slogans against police and the KESC. Finally, after getting an assurance from the authorities, the protestors ended the blockade and dispersed.

Talking to The News, the Naib-Nazim, Gulberg Town, Osman Baig, said that people were facing problems due to power breakdowns fir the last three days. "We managed to calm down the angry protestors and police also stopped shelling. At present the situation is peaceful," he added.

However, a spokesman for the KESC, when contacted, denied continuous power breakdown since last three to five days and said that on Friday a fault developed in a transformer of Federal B Area Grid resulting in power breakdown. "The said transformer was repaired on Saturday but in the meantime another transformer of Liaqatabad Grid become faulty owing to overloading. The repair work is started and the transformer will start functioning soon," said the spokesman. Till our filing of this report, the power supply in the affected areas was not restored.