SWABI, Aug 6: The local chapters of all political parties except the ruling Awami National Party vowed at a conference here on Monday to work jointly for ending prolonged power outages in the district and withdrawal of an FIR, registered against power protesters.

The conference was convened by Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf that was attended by local leaders of Pakistan People’s Party-Sherpao, Jamaat-i-Islami, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl and Awami Jamhoori Ittehad.

PTI provincial leader Asad Qaisar presided over the conference.

The power protesters had torched Swabi grid station on July 30. The Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) registered FIR against 26 protesters. It alleged that Shah Wali, former district information secretary of PTI, was leading the protesters.

Eight alleged protesters, including elderly Khair Wali, have already been arrested by police while the remaining people named in the FIR area still at large.

The main objective of the conference was to evolve a joint strategy about withdrawal of the FIR and ending prolonged power outages in the district.

The speakers said that people of the district were facing 20 to 22 hours loadshedding even in Ramazan despite the fact that they had rendered sacrifices for construction of Tarbela Dam and Ghazi Barotha Hydro Power Project.

They criticised ANP leadership for remaining silent on the prolonged power outages and playing a role in registration of FIR against the protesters.

“The problem of he people is our problem. We will together through thick and thin because our real strength comes from the masses. We can’t adopt wait and see policy like the ruling parties when masses are in hot water,” said Mr Asad.

Mohammad Ali, JI district general secretary, stressed the need for waging joint struggle to resolve the problem. “We provide electricity to our beloved country but we offer Taraweeh and have Sehri in the dark,” he said. Other speakers said that loadshedding was also observed in other areas but Swabi experienced the worst kind of power outages.

It was decided that leaders of all parties would meet again on August 9 to finalise future line of action.