QUETTA, April 28: Farmers on Thursday blocked highways at Kuchlak, Lakpass and Bolan on a call given by the Balochistan Zamindar Action Committee to protest against loadshedding. As a result, hundreds of vehicles remained stranded on the road for several hours.

The blockade in the morning stopped traffic between Quetta and Zhob, Karachi and Sibi. The blockade ended at 4pm.

The committee’s president Syed Taj Mohammad Agha told Dawn that the growers would make stronger protest if the authorities of the Quetta Electric Supply Company did not change their attitude towards farmers and did not scrap the loadshedding programme that was adversely affecting crops and orchards.

A Qesco spokesman, in a statement issued here, claimed that a meeting of the company’s officials and representatives of the committee was scheduled on+ Thursday but the farmers’ leaders did not attend it.