17 July 2004	Saturday	28 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

PESHAWAR, July 16: Six villagers and six police officials, including an SP and a DSP, were injured in a clash between a mob and law-enforcement personnel in the Badhber area on the outskirts of the city on Friday.

The clash occurred after people from villages near the town tried to storm the Badhber grid station to protest against extended load shedding. Angry people from the villages adjoining the city blocked the main Peshawar-Kohat Road early Friday morning, local residents told Dawn.

The traffic remained suspended between 9am and 5:30pm during the drawn out clash between the mob and the law enforcement agencies. It was learnt that villages in Badhber were experiencing extensive and extended loadshedding since the start of the summer season, said a resident, who identified himself simply as Farhad. "But for the past three days villages were experiencing power outages lasting more than 14 hours a day," he alleged. "Last night, there was no electricity and no body could sleep the whole night," he maintained.

A small group of residents had planned to visit the Wapda House in Peshawar to lodge a protest against the Pesco authorities when some people pelted stones on vehicles on the road, an eyewitness, Jamshed, said.

Later, the police was called in to control the mob which by that time swelled to more than 400 people as villagers used local mosques' loudspeakers for support, he added.

A police official said that the police wanted to negotiate with the mob and held talks with the local elders, particularly with Nazim Niaz, but protesters were adamant and planned to attack the Pesco grid station in Badhber.

The police cordoned off the grid station and called in extra force from Kohat, the district reserve police and the Frontier Constabulary to control the situation, said DSP (rural) Imran Khan.

He said that some people opened indiscriminate fire on the police force in which he himself and SP (rural) Ayub, ASI Niaz Ali, a traffic police official, Hashmat, and constables Naveed Alam and Hussain Shah were injured.

The police also retaliated by firing tear-gas shells to disperse the protesters, DSP Imran said. However, witness alleged that policemen also opened fire on the mob because of which six persons were injured, one of them critically. The injured included Gohar, Touheed, Mohsin, Abdullah, Qaiser and Saifur Rehman.

All injured persons were taken to the Lady Reading Hospital where Qaiser and ASI Niaz Ali were admitted, while the remaining injured were discharged after first aid, hospital sources said. They said that Qaiser received a bullet in his chest and the doctors operated him upon his arrival. His condition was still critical, they added.