KESC to shut SITE plant after workers 'kidnapped by CBA union'

Power company says 40 workers kidnapped from 90MW plant which provides electricity to SITE and adjoining areas.

KARACHI: The Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) on Wednesday said that it was shutting down a power plant in the SITE area after “CBA union workers entered the plant and kidnapped 40 of the staff present there”.

A spokesman for the power company said that no staff was present at the plant at the moment and that CBA men had taken the staff to an “unknown location” in trucks.

He said that the KESC will not reopen the plant till the government provides full security to it.

The power company claims that union workers were involved in the incident.

Union workers denied the claim and said that they were not involved in any such incident and added that they would welcome law enforcement agencies to take action against those responsible.

Peoples’ Worker Union (PWU) general secretary, Latif Mughal said that the security of all KESC installations was the responsibility of both the power company and the government. He asked why the police had not been informed immediately after the attack and why KESC security did not resist the attack.

The 90-megwatt plant provides electricity to industrial and residential area located in SITE and adjoining areas.

Earlier, the power company had threatened to shut down all ongoing operations in the city because the unionists had been preventing outsourced repair teams from doing their work.

KESC has been under attack, it says for quite some time now. On Monday morning, union workers entered the Korangi power plant and Landhi grid station where they manhandled staff and injured them.