KARACHI: Some 2,500 workers of the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KNUPP) near the Paradise Point — about 30 miles off Karachi — set on fire 11 vehicles and ransacked the offices of the KNUPP damaging furniture, typewriters, refrigerators and important maps etc last evening [Feb 20].

However, no damage was done to the 137-Megawatt capacity KNUPP — country’s first nuclear power project — being built with Canadian assistance by the Canadian General Electric Company. The loss of the property was estimated to cost about Rs five lakhs or so.

The future of the project which is expected to go into operation by July 1970 has gone into jeopardy as most of the technicians expressed fear of their lives to this correspondent and added that they have plans to quit this country. Panic-stricken technicians — all Canadians — shut themselves in a store room fitted with steel doors and came out only when the Police had come on the scene.

A heavy contingent of the Police force accompanied by fire-brigades and the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Nazimabad, brought the situation under control by most tactful handling of the situation. Later on, the SDM made a fervent appeal to the labourers to disperse peacefully until today when their demands will be discussed and decided. — Correspondent

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2019