HYDERABAD, Aug 17: The residents of some parts of the Cantonment area staged a sit-in outside the Hyderabad Cantonment Board office here on Sunday to protest against disconnection of water supply.

The vehicular traffic on the road came to a halt due to the sit-in which continued for half an hour.

Later, the residence of Tayyab Complex threatened to block the main road if their water supply was not restored in 24 hours.

Speaking at a news conference at the local press club, the representatives of the residents, Sajjad Rajar and others, said that 56 families living in the building had not received a drop of water due to the ongoing tussle between the Hyderabad Cantonment Board and the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company.

They claimed that the residents of the building had regularly been paying water charges to the Cantonment Board against which Rs90 million power charges were outstanding.

They said that Hesco had retaliated by disconnecting power supply to the Cantonment Board water pump as a result the consumers had not received a drop of water for the last one week.

They further said that the board was “illegally” charging fee for vehicle parking outside the Tayyab Complex and the SRTC Complex which had created problems for the area residents.

They demanded that the water supply should be restored to the building and the parking of vehicles should be stopped immediately.

They warned that if their demands were not accepted in 24 hours, they would block the main cantonment road.

They appealed to the chief justice to take suo moto action against the Cantonment Board.

Answering a question, they said that the residence of Shelter Apartment, Khurram Square, Burhani Centre, Seema Plaza, Siyal Para and Bohri Bazaar had also not received a water for the last one week.

CONTRACT DOCTORS: About two dozen contractual doctors, under the banner of the Contract Doctors Forum, held a protest demonstration outside the press club on Sunday against the non-regularization of their services.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Barkat Ali Leghari, Dr Aslam Narejo and Dr Usman Mengal said that it was an irony that the services of contractual doctors had not been regularized even after eight years.

They appealed to the MPAs to raise the issue in the Sindh Assembly on Aug 26 to save 800 families from starvation.