KARACHI: Thousands of commuters, including a large number of female factory workers, on Monday remained stuck in one of the worst traffic jams for hours in the eastern parts of the city as residents of Shah Faisal Colony staged a sit-in against prolonged loadshedding and power outages in their vicinity especially during night-time.

While people from almost every part of the city complained of prolonged loadshedding carried out by K-Electric, enraged residents of Shah Faisal Colony took to the streets, blocked main road for vehicular traffic and staged a sit-in.

Eyewitnesses told Dawn that the charged protestors also beat up policemen near the flyover on the Malir river connecting Shah Faisal Colony with industrial area of Korangi when they tried to remove barricades and obstacles to clear the road.

The protesters said that the KE had made their lives miserable as three-hour loadshedding was being carried out after every three hours in a day.

Thousands of people returning home from nearby industrial area remained stuck in traffic jam for hours

All types of vehicles, including motorcycles and scooters, remained stationed bumper to bumper for hours from Shah Faisal Colony No 5 to Singer Chowrangi in Korangi piling miseries on people, especially female factory workers who were on way back to their homes from Korangi Industrial Area.

Nasir Mehmood, a resident of Shah Faisal Colony No 5, told Dawn that multiple spells of three-hour loadshedding was being carried out in his area even during night-time for the past two weeks.

“We have lodged several complaints with the K-Electric, but to no avail,” he said, adding that the inaction on part of the power utility was criminal.

Another resident, Muhammad Shahnawaz, said that the protesters took to street in Shah Faisal Colony No 2 against the unannounced and prolonged loadshedding in the vicinity at around 4pm, disrupting the vehicular traffic in the neighbourhood.

He said that the people ended the protest at around 8:30pm after heavy contingents of police and Rangers reached the spot and negotiated with the protesters.

The traffic mess forced a large number of women, including factory workers, to leave the vehicles they were travelling as most of them wanted to leave the traffic mess before dusk to avoid any untoward incident, such as mugging and eve-teasing.

“Our bus got stuck in the traffic on the Malir River Bridge at around 4:30pm and we finally left the bus and started walking to Shah Faisal Colony,” said a female factory worker.

Another worker at a biscuit factory in Korangi Industrial Area said that she and her colleagues were so frightened due to the tense situation in the protest that they also started heading to their homes on foot.

Meanwhile, a KE spokesperson stated that power supply to the city was currently continuing as per the schedule announced on June 30, which is also available on KE website.

The spokesperson added that difficulty in purchasing fuel and its short supply was affecting production capacity leading to load management.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2022