DADU: A complete shutdown strike was observed in Sehwan on Monday and march was staged in protest against 14-hour long ‘unscheduled’ loadshedding in the town and its adjoining areas and registration of ‘bogus’ cases by Hesco officials against common townspeople and members of business community on charges of power theft.

The call for the protest was issued by Sindh United Party and activists of Shia Ulema Council, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl, Sindhi Adadi Sangat, lawyers and business community also joined it.

The march started from Dhamal Chowk and went to Indus Highway where the participants staged a demonstration, bringing traffic to a halt.

The protesters’ leaders SUP taluka president Nawaz Ali Rind, Safdar Hussain Najfi, Ali Nawaz Solangi, Meer Hajan Panhwar and others said that 14-hour long outage had seriously hit their business.

They said that both Sindh and federal governments were silent on the unscheduled loadshedding and neither bothered to take notice of the protest business community and citizens had been holding in Sehwan for past one month.

They said that bogus cases were registered against the protest organisers. They were paying their bills every month, still huge detection bills were issued and they were being fined, they said.

They said that devotees too, among them foreigners as well who came to Sehwan to pay respects to Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, were not spared by Hesco officials, who were not ready to provide uninterrupted power supply to the shrine and its adjacent areas.

They said that citizens and business community were facing hardships and their elected representatives had left them at the mercy of local Hesco officials. The unscheduled loadshedding had not only affected their business but also disrupted supply of potable water in the town, they complained.

They said that several bogus FIRs on charges of power theft had been registered against citizens as punishment for resisting the loadshedding and issuance of detection bills. Local Hesco officials were abusing their powers to mint money, they said.

They said the Hesco officials had provided illegal connections to influential people and they were carrying out unscheduled loadshedding and issuing detection bills to cover up line losses.

They said that loadshedding was seriously affecting tourists, common citizens and members of business community, and warned if their genuine issues were not resolved they would continue their protest and further expand it.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2024