Protest: Residents ransack Sepco office

Protesters accuse officials of corruption.

SUKKUR: Hundreds of New Goth residents ransacked the Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco) office to protest unscheduled load-shedding on High Court Road on Wednesday.

Protesters broke office doors, smashed windows and threw stones, causing damage to parked vehicles. One of the protesters, Abdul Salam Bandhani, accused Sepco officials of corruption. “The transformer in our area stopped working last week and we bribed Sepco officials to repair it, but it broke down again and now they are demanding more money,” he claimed.

The Sepco sub-divisional officer, Kashif Qureshi, met the protesters and assured them that the transformers would be replaced soon but “the load-shedding situation is beyond my control”.

Qureshi said most of the transformers break down in the summer because of illegal ‘kunda’ connections.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 19^th, 2011.