PESHAWAR, June 9: Residents of various localities of Peshawar on Sunday held protest demonstrations against prolonged power suspensions.

The protesters blocked Dalazak Road at various places for hours by throwing stones and burning tyres. They also shouted against the government and Wapda.

Protesters said power supply remained suspended for 14-18 hours causing severe shortage of water in the localities on Dalazak Road. They said they were forced to fetch water from far off areas.

“Worst affected are the children and patients who cannot sleep at night and have to use hand fans,” Alamzeb, a protester, told reporters on the occasion. He said Pesco complaint cell didn’t respond to their calls.

Alamzeb said despite prolonged outages, they were receiving inflated power bills. “Power supply to our houses is disconnected in case we deposit our monthly bills a day or two after the due date,” he said. He appealed to the chief justice of Pakistan to take suo motu notice of excessive power outages and increasing tariff.

Meanwhile, the residents of Daudzai, Badbher and Arbab Landi localities also demonstrated against the outages. They criticised the government for failure to seek a permanent solution to the problem. They said the students were also unable to prepare for their examinations.

The protesters told media persons that Pesco technical staff demanded of them to pay for repair of faulty power transformers.

LANDI KOTAL: Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf activists on Sunday staged a protest demonstration against US drone strikes and excessive loadshedding in tribal areas.

The protesting PTI activists urged the federal government to adopt a bold and aggressive policy against the drone strikes.

They threatened to block the Peshawar-Torkhum Highway if the Tribal Areas Electricity Supply Company did not reduce the long hours of electricity loadshedding in most parts of Khyber Agency especially Landi Kotal and Torkhum in three days.

They urged the shopkeepers at Landi Kotal bazaar not to pay their electricity bills as they were also subjected to excessive loadshedding.