Power tripping: KESC tries to cut off Rangers

KESC unsuccessfully tries to disconnect the supply to the Pakistan Rangers Director-General office.

KARACHI: The Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) Ltd unsuccessfully tried to disconnect the supply to the Pakistan Rangers Director-General office at Jinnah Courts on Dr Ziauddin Ahmed Road over Rs54 million in unpaid bills.

According to KESC’s spokesman, a team sent to cut them off, was stopped. “The consumer [Rangers] has not paid the outstanding dues for a long time,” said KESC. “[Our] team had almost completed the disconnection work to sever the link from two pole-mounted transformers, when the Rangers forced them to reconnect the supply.” The DG’s office was not disconnected as a result.

However, KESC managed to disconnect other Rangers offices, including the Sachal Rangers Headquarters at the Super Highway, the Rangers Headquarters at Dawood College and at Abdullah Shah Ghazi, the 33 wing Saeedabad-Baldia town and the Sachal Rangers Mehran Welfare Complex in North Nazimabad.

For its part, however, a Rangers spokesman told The Express Tribune that they had paid all bills till December 31. They would pay the first quarter bills according to the schedule. He added that they pay with the budget allocated by the government. He refuted KESC’s claims that its team was beaten.

FIR against KESC

Meanwhile, Additional District and Sessions Judge South Abdul Razzak ordered on Thursday the Defence SHO to lodge an FIR against the KESC human resource officer Manzoor, chief security officer Col (r) Asif Saeed, director for new connections Muhammad Siddique and Osama Qureshi, secretary to the KESC CEO, on charges of beating protesting KESC employees. The order came in an application filed under Section 22-A of the CrPC filed by Akhlaq Ahmed, chairman of the KESC labour union.

He maintained that he and other employees went to register a case but the Defence police refused, which is why they went to court. After hearing the counsel for the petitioner, the court ordered that a case be registered if a cognizable offence was made out against the respondents.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 18^th, 2011.