KARACHI, Oct 25: Upset about prolonged power breakdowns in their locality, enraged youths of Ranchhore Line took to the streets on Tuesday evening.

Residents of the locality called in to say that prolonged power cuts had made their lives miserable for the past five days.

“I fully support the youths who protested against the power breakdowns. Complaints made to the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation in a civilized manner seem to go unnoticed. KESC officials seem to understand the language of violence only,” an irate resident of the area said.

A spokesman for the KESC said that a main cable fault was responsible for a power breakdown in Ranchhore Line and adjoining localities in the evening.

He added that the power fault was being attended to and power supply would soon be restored to the area.

The spokesman said the KESC network was manual and a complaint centre learnt of an electricity fault in the area only when residents informed it about it.

Officials of the Garden police station said live electric wires in the area had caught fire. “A fire tender came to the area but by that time the wires had fallen on cars. Fortunately, the fire didn’t spread,” he said.

They added that the area residents were extremely unhappy about frequent power breakdowns.

Meanwhile, a resident of Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Block 4, said his area experienced power breakdowns for six to eight hours every day. “We have power breakdowns a couple of times every day. The power breakdowns occur with such frequency -– and for such a long duration -– that quite often we fail to charge our UPS. I fail to understand why our locality experiences power breakdowns so often and why the KESC offers no explanation for prolonged power breakdowns.”