GUJRANWALA:
Violent protests triggered by frequent, long-hour power outages continued unabated in different towns and cities of Punjab on Monday – a day when irate consumers also set alight a passenger train in Gujranwala district.
Incensed by long spells of unannounced load-shedding in the scorching summer, thousands of people gathered in Kamonki tehsil of Gujranwala district. They burnt tyres on GT Road, suspending vehicular traffic for over six hours.
However, when the authorities did not take notice of the roadblock, some of the protesters moved towards the nearby Kamonki railway station where the local ‘Bau Train’ had just chugged in en route to Sialkot from Lahore. The protesters stoned the carriages, forcing passengers to flee. The protesters then looted five passenger bogies and one goods compartment and set them on fire one by one, according to witnesses.
The carriages burnt for five hours – while railway authorities managed to rescue the locomotive, witnesses said. Police did not dare to challenge the angry protesters and stayed away. Authorities said that railway traffic between Peshawar and Karachi would remain suspended unless the gutted bogies were removed from the track.
Published In The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2012.
COMMENTS (16)
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Why do Pakistanis need electricity and trains? There were no trains in the prophet's time nor was their electricity. You wish to emulate everything from the prophet's time and are against all modern values than why do Pakistanis need electricity and trains? Shun this modern things which is from the kuffar.
last nail in the coffin of railways.
@A.Javed yet claims that indians are no more afraid of Pakistan
We are not afraid of you, but you guys are just far more amusing than us boring Indians.
Why burn a train which is used by the same poor people and the masses? The targets should be the Presidential Palace, Prime Ministers Palace, Chief Ministers and Governors Palaces. Wake Up !!!
@rajendra kalkhande at least they burned an empty train not full of human beings just as you people are used to do. but perhaps you give more values to train than human beings. I am not justifying their action but why do you indians always poke your nose in our internal matters and remains very curious that what is happening in Pakistan. yet claims that indians are no more afraid of Pakistan.
Pakistani current government is deaf and blind by heart because when there shall be no electricity and gas and industries shall be closed then there shall be no work and as a consequence of unemployment and joblessness just due to closing of factories/industries under the umbrella of extreme expensiveness then what the workers have to do?Because empty mind is house of devil and these protests are natural because when you will not provide jobs and employments to the nation and most especially importantly when you will usurp the jobs from the factories'/industries' employees then they shall do so.
This is the Gujarat rioting started.
PMLN is spreading provincialism. Loadshedding is done in other provinces, but there is no PMLN there. PMLN is puting unity of Pakistan at risk. If Punjabies also become provincialist, the noone can save Pakistan, and biggest losers will be Punjabies who will be at the mercy of Sikhs and Mumbai port.
@Ashtar who writes "this system is on its way towards a complete collapse. I wish this comes soon, so that a new system is born like a snake changing its peel."
So you think, changing systems is like moulting.
Funny. Yes. Please speed up the process. Kill the current system and you will have a new system magically and soon you will be a progressed country like Japan did after Hiroshima/Nagasaki.
They made a mistake.
How can burning a train bring more power?
I say, burn down the power stations, that will give you more power. Isn't that the smarted thing to do?
Mr. Choudhary Mukhtar says the urban areas will have 8 hours and the rural areas 12 hours of load-shedding. It shames and loathes me to even take the name of PPP.
This incident of train burning will give newer ideas of frustration and desperation to the citizens and the PPP had better come to its senses. Or is it already too late. Thanx to persons like Raja Pervaiz Ashraf who made tall claims for nothing. Just look at his clothes; how spick and span they are. Well groomed and attired. Whereas the citizens suffer untold privations.
Salams to Pakistan
As if Pakistan had surplus trains. Do people know the cost of one train? Does Pakistan Railway has money to replace this train? Looks like Army takeover of Pakistan is just round the corner now.
good work mobsters. government doesnt listen. incidents like these are needed to attain attention of corrupt government in the broader interest of the country some public property should be destroyed. i would have been more happy if they burned national assembly or president house.
When there will be load shedding of 22 hours then what do you expect??. I know PTI mummy daddys and people of other provinces will be quick to call that region as Ignorant and irresponsible but now everything is crossing limits. The more is yet to come in coming days and I have seen scenes myself and if other provinces think that they will live in a good manner and people of Islamabad will be safe then they are wrong. I think in coming days Civil War like situation could engulf whole of Punjab and Pakistan as these riots will not be limited to Punjab but Islamabad is pretty near and it is pretty dangerous for the existence of Pakistan in general.
this system is on its way towards a complete collapse. I wish this comes soon, so that a new system is born like a snake changing its peel.
The protesters stoned the carriages, forcing passengers to flee. The protesters then looted five passenger bogies and one goods compartment and set them on fire one by one, according to witnesses.
The rampage and looting was led by Shahbaz Sharif!