Strike: Markets, businesses stay closed

FAISALABAD: Markets and businesses remained completely closed in the city on Monday in protest against unscheduled and prolonged power outages for the last three days. Owing to massive power cuts for 16 to 20 hours in a day, the entire normal life and industrial, trading and commercial activities in and around the city had become paralysed, causing a great deal of difficulties for businessmen, industrialists and traders. During the strike, all markets and plazas remained shut. More than two dozen protest rallies were brought out from different parts of the city. The protesters, carrying placards, chanted slogans against the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) and Faisalabad Electric Supply Company and demanded immediate restoration of electricity supply. The protesters staged a sit-in at Chowk Clock Tower and vowed that their protest would continue till the acceptance of their demands.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 4^th, 2011.