Energy crisis: Protest over gas supply delays trains

Gate-keeper attacked for refusing to change track.

MULTAN:

Scores of residents of Mumtazabad Colony protested against the Sui Southern Gas Pipelines Limited here on Friday against suspension of gas to the colony for over a month.

The protesters, who had started by staging a demonstration at the Manzurabad Square- the Colony’s centre, later marched to the nearby railway track and refused to let trains pass.

Threatening to set bogies on fire, the protesters held gas stoves and cylinders as they staged a sit in on the railway track.

They were later joined by over 100 people from the slums in the adjoining five area and people who said they had lost their jobs as powerlooms workers due to gas loadshedding.



The protesters, including children, shouted slogans against the department. They said there had been no gas at their homes for over a month.

They said they had informed the officials concerned several times, but were told to wait.

Some of the protesters held sticks and threatened to attack railways officials for trying to stop them. Some of them wore bread around their neck.

They later stopped a Karachi-bound train from Lahore. Some of the protesters climbed on the bogies.

Police were called and the protesters were told to stop. The police also threatened them with gas-shelling, but to no avail.

Some of the protesters asked Ahmed Nazir, the gate-keeper at the track, to change the track so that the train could not move.

His refusal led to an argument and some men attacked him. He was injured and taken to the district headquarters hospital, where he was reported to be out of danger.

The demonstration continued for three hours before police arrived at the scene and baton charged the protesters. No one was arrested. The train was let go after four hours.

A Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited official seeking anonymity said he was not aware of an unscheduled loadshedding in the area.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 9^th, 2013.