KARACHI: Violence over power failures continues: 12-hour breakdown
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, May 11: Violence broke out in protest against prolonged power breakdowns in Liaquatabad late Wednesday night and continued into the small hours of Thursday.
Residents of Liaquatabad, Nazimabad, Gulbahar and some blocks of Federal B Area spent a sleepless night on Wednesday. The KESC said a conductor of a 132 KV extra-high tension line carrying electricity from the Haroonabad grid station to Liaquatabad was dislodged at around 6pm and caused the breakdown.
Residents of Liaquatabad, who had been suffering frequent and prolonged power failures in the recent past, took to the streets and turned violent. They made bonfires on S.M. Taufeeq Road, blocking it for the movement of traffic throughout the night. They also attacked the complaint centre of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation, destroyed traffic signals and ransacked a roadside hotel.
People staged a sit-in on the road and raised slogans against the KESC management as well as the government. They blocked the road from the Teen Hatti bridge to the Liaquatabad flyover. Police and Rangers reached the spot to control the situation and lobbed teargas shells. But the angry mob got more violent and pelted law enforcers with stones.
Police fled the scene. Rangers stayed at a considerable distance from the violent crowd.
A spokesman for the KESC said the fault was removed in the early morning and power supply to Liaquatabad, Nazimabad and part of Federal B Area was restored by 3:30am.
However, residents of the affected area claimed that power supply was restored at 6am and they spent the whole night without electricity. They alleged that the new management of the KESC was worse than the previous one.
Besides, people from other localities also complained of power failures in their respective areas. But, the KESC spokesman claimed that the power supply remained normal on Thursday and no load-shedding was needed. He said the capacity of power with the KESC was 2,100 megawatts, and whenever the demand would exceed 2,100mw, the KESC would resort to load-shedding.
He said the power utility would announce a group-wise power load-shedding plan in the summer season so that people knew the timings.
Dr Ishtiaq from North Nazimabad, Block-A, said the KESC carried out load-shedding from 8pm to 10pm daily. Besides, power failures during the day were a routine. He asked the authorities if a fault occurred daily at 8pm, it was rectified within two hours.
Another resident in Saddar said that prolonged power failures in his locality were order of the day. He said that power went off for five hours on Wednesday and for two hours on Thursday.
Residents of Federal B Area, North Nazimabad, North Karachi, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Defence Housing Authority, Clifton, Gizri, Korangi, Mehmoodabad, Baloch Colony, PECHS, Mohammad Ali Cooperative Housing Society and other areas also complained about intermittent power failures in their respective localities.
