KARACHI, April 25: Enraged over prolonged power breakdowns in their respective localities, residents of Khudadad Colony and Bahadurabad turned violent on Wednesday and attacked two local offices of the Karachi Electric Supply Company to vent their anger against the indifferent attitude of the power utility.

The protestors also blocked Shahrah-e-Quaideen causing suspension of vehicular traffic on the otherwise busy artery and gridlock in the surrounding areas.

In a bid to disperse the protesters, police resorted to baton-charge and teargas shelling.

KESC spokesman Amir-ur-Rehman said that the mob ransacked the whole office [in Khudadad Colony] within half an hour, damaging vehicles, computers and record cabinets and setting the furniture on fire.

However, no KESC employees were injured, he added.

He said that a similar incident had already occurred in the area three weeks ago. These tactics would not work this time around as the electricity supply would not be restored till the payment of bills, he added.

He complained that the residents of the area had refused to negotiate any payment plan to clear their dues and did not seem interested in taking down their illegal connections, which were destroying the pole-mounted transformers.

He explained that two PMTs of Lines Area had burnt out due to illegal overloading (excessive kunda connection). These PMTs, located at Saleem Pan and Butt Video, had outstanding dues amounting to approximately Rs19 million. “Only 18 per cent of customers on these PMT’s pay their bills, the rest are chronic defaulters,” he said.

“We recently went to great lengths to improve payment recovery but in vain,” said the spokesman, adding: “We provided customers with easy instalment bills at their doorsteps, even till this Sunday, but got no response.”