Residents of Bandhani Colony in Liaquatabad took to Sir Shah Suleman Road near the Gharibabad intersection and lit bonfires in the evening. They said power was suspended frequently during Monday night and it remained suspended since noon on Tuesday.
As the police reached the spot, they pelted the police mobile vans with stones. The police brought the law and order situation under control and assured the people that they would contact KESC personnel to rectify the fault and restore the power supply to the affected area.
However, a spokesman for the KESC, when contacted at 8:50pm, said the grid station supplying power to Liaquatabad was operational and no fault was reported there. He claimed that the system was working properly and said: "Every protest in the city is not against the KESC."
Liaquatabad town police officer SP Latif Siddiqui, who was contacted over his cellphone at 8:56pm, said: "KESC personnel in their vans have reached the troubled spot and the area SHO with police escorted the KESC men to the exact place where the wire had snapped. The KESC men in the police protection have started repair work".
Earlier, a major portion of the city plunged into darkness just after midnight between Monday and Tuesday after the KDA-Baldia circuit had tripped. Due to the tripping, power supply to various areas including North Nazimabad, Federal B Area, North Karachi, New Karachi, and parts of Nazimabad went off. The power supply was restored after a brief shutdown but some areas remained in the grip of darkness.
A consumer from Khayaban-i-Mujahid in Phase V, Defence Housing Authority, said that power went off in his locality at 4am.
He made a call on the local KESC's complaint cell (5857797) where he was informed that it was a major cable fault and it would take time to get repaired. He again made a call on the centralized complaint centre (118) where he got the response that it was not a major fault but the problem was either in his area's pole mounted transformer (PMT) or any wire would have snapped.
He got the number of assistant general manager and informed him about the situation at 12:30pm and the power was restored after awhile. He said neither it was power loadshedding nor it was a breakdown but the KESC deliberately switched off power to certain areas turn by turn.
Another consumer, Iqbal from Defence View, said power went off in his locality at around 1am and it continued playing hide-and-seek the whole night. Power was restored at 9am. The supply was again disrupted at noon. "I made a call on the KESC's local complaint cell (5387742) where the staff said they did not know anything about it and could do nothing. When I asked the telephone numbers for high-ups, they told me that they did not have any numbers."
Iqbal said that power supply was again suspended in the evening and when he called the complaint centre, the KESC men told him it was due to loadshedding.
Power supply was intermittently suspended for many hours in the morning and again it was suspended in the name of loadshedding.