KARACHI, April 30: The office of the area XEN of the Water and Sanitation Department was ransacked by the enraged residents of North Karachi’s Sector 11-J on Wednesday

The protesters also smashed the window panes of the offices situated on the ground floor of the W&S Department’s head office, behind the City Nazim’s Secretariat building at Civic Centre, when denied access to the department’s senior officials.

Witnesses said the protesters, including women, first struck at the office of the XEN, North Karachi, to lodge a complaint and seek an explanation about chronic water shortage in their area and the indifferent attitude of the relevant officials to their agony. Finding the staff least interested in listening to their grievances, they started shouting and went on rampage causing damage to fixtures and furniture in the office.

Later, the protesters proceeded to the W&S Department’s head office, in the Civic Centre’s annexe and sought a meeting with the officials. However, the law enforcement agencies personnel blocked their way into the building. The protesters, in a fit of anger, ransacked the office smashing window panes of the suits on first floor of the annexe.

The annexe houses offices of the department’s chief engineer (Water distribution), chief engineer (Sewerage), deputy managing directors (Human Resource and RRG), Advisor (Finance) and the chief engineer’s control room, etc. Witnesses said that when the group was warned against entering into the building, the women protesters raised their hands and started cursing the W&S officials loudly for depriving their locality of water in the such a sizzling weather.

After failing to apprise the senior officials of their problem, they turned to the W&S main office, situated at 9th-Mile, Karsaz. Here, too, they were not allowed to meet the department’s EDO or managing director.

Realizing that nobody was ready even to receive a delegation of aggrieved citizens, they returned disappointed to their locality.

Complaints of acute water shortage also continued to pour in at newspaper offices from other areas including Shah Faisal Colony, Metroville, Site, Baldia, Orangi, Federal B Area’s blocks 10 and 18, North Karachi’s Shadman Town, Sector 15-A/5 and New Karachi’s Sector 5-E.

Most of the complainants said that on the one hand, they had been experiencing acute water shortage and, on the other, W&S department’s officials usually avoided meeting them on one pretext or the other.

“Isn’t it irony that we are not even aware about the department’s complaint centres. They have either set up no such centres or are not willing to make the numbers and addresses of such centres public,” remarked a resident of Baldia Town.

CHOKED LINES: Residents of New Karachi’s Sector 5-E complained that about 100 houses of their locality’s blocks 32-36 were deprived of water for the last one year owing to choked pipelines. They said that the concerned officials were paying no attention to this problem despite repeated complaints, they added.