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HYDERABAD, June 22: People took to the streets in different parts of City and Latifabad talukas on Tuesday to protest against non-availability of water. Residents, including women and children, of Dadan Shah Colony of union council-5 blocked the Al-Rahim shopping centre road.
The protesters also burnt tyres on the road. The protest caused traffic jam on the Tilak Incline road as vehicles, including passengers buses, used the one-way road after the blockade of the shopping centre road.
Talking to this correspondent, Saeeda, Naseem, Sahira and Zara regretted that water had not been supplied to their areas for eight days. They said they had been appealing for water supply to authorities concerned but to no avail.
The blockade was ended after one hour. The area people also forced shopkeepers to close their shops. Arshad Lodhi, Kareem, Zahid and other residents told journalists that no one had listened to their complaints.
They lit bonfires and raised barricades on the main road. Market police officials took some people to the office of Water and Sanitation Agency for lodging a complaint against non-supply of water.
The protest was suspended for a while but when no official was found at the office, the protesting people again held a demonstration and shopkeepers shut their shops. Residents of Mumtaz Colony and Latifabad-12 also blocked roads in their areas to protest against non-availability of water for past several days.
Wasa managing director Habibur Rehman Memon and executive engineer Bashir Awan could not be contacted. However, Wasa officials the other day had claimed that power disruption at agency's water works had affected supply of water to residents.
DCO Mohammad Hussain Syed, who is also the Hyderabad Development Authority director-general, on Sunday had said power supply to the HDA's main filter plant remained suspended from 11pm to 5am and again from about 11am to 4pm on Monday, badly affecting water supply to various localities of the city.
ATTACK CRITICIZED: The Pakistan NGO Forum has denounced violence against civil societies and urged the government to take notice of the armed attack on activists of a Peshawar-based non- government organization and have the culprits arrested, reports Bureau.
In a statement faxed to Dawn here on Monday, Forum secretary Noor Mohammad said that armed attacks on and threats to civil society institutions, a common practice in the country nowadays, were sheer acts of terrorism that affected the lives of individuals striving for the good of the society.
He pointed out that on June 16, Peshawar-based Khwendo Kor workers Ms Bushra and her driver were attacked by terrorists near Nirmi Khal in Bannu district while they were on their way to a district school launched by the NGO and added that the workers were seriously injured and had to be hospitalized.
He said that the NGO was merely working to strengthen education and health facilities besides providing micro-credit facilities to the local people. Reiterating said that the incident had created fear among civil society workers as well as the locals, the secretary urged the government to order the arrest of the assailants and provide security to the workers.
