Residents protest outside press club

Residents staged a demonstration outside the Sukkur Press Club on Saturday against prolonged power outages.

SUKKUR: Residents of Teer Chowk, Achar Street and Reti Lane staged a demonstration outside the Sukkur Press Club on Saturday against prolonged power outages. They also claimed that the transformers on Achar Street and Reti Lane that had stopped working three days ago had yet to be repaired.

Protesters carried banners and shouted slogans against the Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco). They also burnt tyres and threw stones at vehicles, blocking traffic for over an hour. One of the protesters, Mohammad Zahid Indhar, said that Sepco has started prolonged and unannounced power cuts during the month of Ramazan despite announcements by Pepco that there will be no power cuts during Sehar, Iftar and Taraweeh timings.

The mob demanded that the unannounced power outages be stopped and the transformers repaired. Sukkur operations executive engineer Ashfaq Bhatti said that the transformers had stopped working due to the fault of the residents, who were using illegal electricity connections. He added, however, that both the transformers will be replaced by early Sunday morning.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 5^th, 2010.