KARACHI, April 19: Leaders belonging to various political outfits expressing concern over the prolonged power cuts and increasing incidents of street crime have warned the rulers that if they failed to take immediate remedial measures, the opposition parties would launch a non-payment of power bills campaign.
They demanded of the government not only to check the power crisis but also to take steps to curb the wave of lawlessness.
They were speaking at an All-Parties Conference held under the auspices of the Jamaat-i-Islami Karachi on Thursday at the Idara Noor-i-Haq with Prof Ghafoor Ahmad in the chair.
A resolution adopted on the occasion, also observed that it had become necessary to get rid off the rulers to overcome the load-shedding problem and street crimes.
The resolution also urged all the opposition parties to form a grand opposition alliance to relieve people from the oppressive system and to establish democratic institutions in the country.
“The enlightened rulers had pushed Karachi into darkness and the curse of load-shedding had fallen on people even before the advent of summer”, the resolution said and recalled that last year the Sindh governor had declared that there would be no load-shedding after one year and in the advertisement supplements of his four years rule massive power supply was termed as a big achievement.
Last year, owing to repeated power suspensions in the industrial areas resulted in losses worth billions of rupees but despite announcement of overcoming this problem, no practical measures were taken this year, the resolution pointed out and said that due to continuous load-shedding people were protesting on the streets resulting in further deterioration of law and order.
Inadequate power supply was also resulting in closure of industries causing unemployment while the enlightened rulers instead of solving the main issue were busy doing ‘Bhangra’. In the recent past when the city was facing acute problem of power supply, the KESC vehicles instead of providing relief to the masses, were being used to display banners and flags of the MQM.
The resolution said that load-shedding problem could be solved by checking power theft and organised planning but the KESC management due to its inefficiency and incompetent measures had forced the Karachiites to tolerate the curse of load-shedding and now after its privatisation a retired army general had been imposed on the KESC. The performance of these generals was evident from the present state of the country, it added.
Referring to street crime, the resolution said that despite tall claims of the government about law and order, street crimes were on the rise.
During last week in Karachi 12 people were killed in broad day light, three persons were killed in a police encounter, 58 cars were stolen while 16 people were deprived of their cars at gunpoint, 95 motorcycles were stolen and 86 were snatched. Besides 80 thefts and 125 dacoities, around 1,127 mobiles were snatched.
The resolution said that the central government had imposed terrorists and extortionists on Karachi to secure its seat of power.
Prof Ghafoor Ahmad, who is the deputy chief of the JI, in his presidential remarks said that the Karachiites were the most oppressed people of the country where the entire city was in darkness while homes of the rulers were illuminating.
He said due to repeated suspension of power supply, the worst affected were the students who were appearing for their matriculation exams. Prof Ghafoor said if any incident occurred in Islamabad the ruling party used all the government resources to stage demonstrations and telephonic addresses were arranged but they were not concerned with the problems of Karachi. As they had never staged any protest against thefts, dacoities and murders.
Siddique Rathore (JUP), Dr Mairajul Huda Siddiqui(JI), Salim Zia (PML-N), Zubair Khan(TI), Hakim Sawati (ANP), Zia Abbas (NPP), Basharat Mirza (PDP) and others also spoke.
