LANDI KOTAL, Feb 26: Scores of women took to the streets in Khyber Agency on Tuesday to protest the prolonged loadshedding of electricity and acute shortage of drinking water in the tribal region.

Carrying empty buckets and other utensils, the housewives, young girls and school children held a protest demonstration at Marble Chowk after marching through the local bazaar in Malagori area of Jamrud tehsil.

The protesting tribal women chanted slogans against the officials of Tribal Electricity Supply Company (Tesco) and local political administration. They said that prolonged power loadshedding resulted in acute shortage of water in the area.

The protesters said that they were compelled to fetch unhygienic water form natural wells. They said that they had to walk on foot for several kilometres to fetch just one canister full of water for their consumption.

The protesting women agreed to disperse after local elders and some Khasadar officials assured them that their demand for reducing the power loadshedding would be brought into the notice of relevant authorities.

In Landi Kotal Bazaar, shopkeepers also observed a complete shutter down strike and held a protest demonstration at Bacha Khan Chowk against the three-day power breakdown.

Hundreds of political activists and local people also joined the shopkeepers in the protest demonstration.

The protesters chanted slogans against Tesco and political administration. They threatened to block Peshawar-Torkham Highway for an indefinite period if power supply was not restored to the entire Landi Kotal tehsil during the next 24 hours.

Meanwhile, two-year-old Haris Khan of Pased Khel village in Landi Kotal died of measles on Tuesday. The number of children dying of measles in the area during the last two months has reached to eight.