Won’t stand for it: Workers protest SDO’s manhandling by lawyer

Demand police arrest the lawyer, suspects behind a lineman’s murder

BAHAWALPUR: Scores of members of the Bahawalpur WAPDA Hydro Electric Union held a demonstration on Thursday to slam police inaction against a lawyer who had beaten up a sub-divisional officer (SDO) for removing the electricity meter at his house.

WAPDA Hydro Electric Union zonal chairman Fayyaz Khan Baloch told journalists MEPCO Khairpur Tamewali SDO Chaudhry Iftikhar had visited the lawyer’s house to disconnect his electricity meter on Tuesday. The lawyer had failed to pay electricity dues, he explained.

“However, the lawyer told Ifitikhar that he had obtained a stay order and forbade him from removing the meter.” Baloch said that Iftikhar had tried to remove it but the lawyer had beaten him up and threatened him with dire consequences.

Zonal secretary Malik Asghar said it was a travesty. “We filed a complaint about it to the police but the lawyer has not been arrested yet.”

The protesters shouted slogans against the police and the lawyer and held up placards. They also condemned the murder of WAPDA Line Superintendent Chaudhry Liaquat a few weeks ago. Liaquat had been shot dead by unidentified people in the Ahmedpur East WAPDA Colony. The union leaders announced that they would strike for two hours daily till the people who killed Liaquat and the lawyer who beat up Iftikhar were arrested.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 27^th, 2016.