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HYDERABAD, Dec 28: Hundreds of protesters, including women and children, held a demonstration on railway track near Tando Yousuf crossing on Sunday and blocked railway traffic for an hour in protest against non-supply of water to their localities.
The angry protesters burnt tyres on the tracks and forced a train coming from Mirpurkhas to stop. When the police arrived there the protesters moved to the railway junction where Peshawar-bound Awam Express had been halted and smashed its windowpanes.
Hyderabad railway police have registered a case against 650 people on a complaint lodged by Awam Express guard Arbab Ali and local police have rounded up four of the protesters.
The protesters complained that they had not been supplied drinking water for the past three weeks. The timing of water supply and loadshedding did not synchronise. When it was time for water supply, electricity went off leaving them high and dry, they said.
BONDED LABOUR: Police raided a brick kiln in Bhai Khan Talpur village near Tando Mohammad Khan on Sunday and recovered 23 bonded labourers including women.
The raid was carried out on the orders of the additional session judge of Hyderabad.
The kiln workers, Veero, Arbab and Ganwar told journalists at the police station that they were being subjected to forced labour and were not being paid any wages.
They said that they were not allowed to move freely as the kiln owners had kept round the clock watch over them. They demanded that they should be paid their wages.
Police said that the owner had gone to perform Hajj. He would be arrested on his return and produced in court, they said.
