SUKKUR: Activists of political parties and the general public took out rallies and held demonstrations and sit-ins in a number of Sindh towns on Friday in protest against prolonged loadshedding and voltage fluctuation and issuance of highly inflated bills to consumers.

In Jacobabad, activists of the Pakistan Peoples Party-Shaheed Bhutto took out a rally, burnt tyres on roads and held a demonstration against outages. During the protest, the enraged protesters pelted the Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco) office with stones and tried to force their way into it but they were stopped by the police.

The protesters were carrying banners and placards inscribed with slogans against Sepco officials and were raising slogans against the federal minister for power as they marched on roads before converging outside the Sepco office where they held a demonstration and sit-in and burnt tyres and electricity bills.

The protesters’ leaders said that Jacobabad was the hottest place in Asia where corrupt Sepco officials only contributed to making people’s lives more miserable by imposing on them prolonged loadshedding and sending them inflated bills.

They said the inflated bills were sent only to hide corruption and criticised the federal minister who, they said, was sucking the blood of Sindhi people. Both PPP and PML-N were looting the national exchequer by turns, they said.

They demanded an immediate end to loadshedding and issuance of inflated bills and warned they would expand their protest if the Sepco officials did not mend their ways.

Activists of Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf took out rallies and held demonstrations outside the Sukkur press club on Friday in protest against prolonged loadshedding and deaths of a large number of people in Sindh from severe heatstroke.

Local leaders of PTI Rab Nawaz Kalwar, Muhammad Ayub Farooqi and Ali Gohar Khoso who led the protest said that both the federal government and the Sindh government had utterly failed to overcome the nagging electricity crisis.

The Sindh government did nothing to take preventive measures to save people from severe heat which caused death of over 2,500 people across the province, they said.

They demanded an immediate end to loadshedding and urged the government to take strict action against the officials, elected representatives and ministers responsible for the tragedy.

After the protest, the participants of the rally offered funeral prayers in absentia of the heatstroke victims.

The PPP’s rally led by former MPA Dr Nasrullah Baloch, Shah Nawaz Buriro and others terminated in front of the press club where the participants prayed for the heatstroke victims.

Published in Dawn June 27th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play