HYDERABAD: Riots hit several localities of Paretabad late on Monday evening following street protests over power outages continuing in the city for many days.

The protesters had intermittently been taking to the streets in many areas of Hyderabad every day since the advent of Ramazan against excessive loadshedding and frequent outages which, according to them, had reduced the supply duration to merely a few hours a day.

Residents of Pretabad were taking part in a similar protest on Monday evening against the local officers of the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) who, they said, failed to restore power supply to their area for five days.

They said they had been experiencing a miserable life without electricity since a pole-mounted transformer (PMT) had burnt out and several others continued to disrupt supply due to malfunction five days ago. Despite repeated complaints lodged at the Hesco centres concerned, neither the burnt-out PMT was replaced nor was any of the faulty ones repaired. They said several thousand households were rendered without water on account of the outages.

A few groups of youths taking part in the protest turned violent and started pelting stones at passing vehicles and nearby shops when no Hesco team turned up to restore power supply to the affected areas.

Police moved into action and tried to disperse them at Achhi Mori Pull but enraged protesters moved to the main Phulelli road and blocked it with burning tyres while continuing to throw stones at shops and passing vehicles to vent their anger.

As the situation grew tense, police lobbed teargas shells and at some places fired into the air to scare away rioters.

Some people, including women and children, as well as a private TV channel’s cameraman, suffered minor injuries during the riots and stampede.

About 15 vehicles and many shops were damaged by rioters, police said.

All roads leading to Phulelli remained clogged with traffic for more than an hour after Iftar time due to the rioting.

Phulelli SHO Imran Rasheed said that 15 protesters were taken into custody during the police action but let off on personal bond.

Meanwhile, it was gathered that many localities of Hyderabad had been without electricity for two to five days on account of burnt-out PMTs and localised faults while most other areas had been experiencing four to 10 hours of outages, including scheduled loadshedding, a day.

Talhar shutdown

BADIN: Talhar town of Badin district remained completely shut on Tuesday on a call given by the Aurat Ittehad against unannounced loadshedding and frequent outagesover the past several weeks.

Businessmen, traders and shopkeepers gave a positive response to the protest call as all markets, bazaars, shopping centres, offices, commercial outlets and shops remained closed throughout the day.

Activists of the Aurat Ittehad including Farzana Dalwani, Fardous Abro and Pirya Qambrani also led a rally and spoke to the participants at different points along its route. The rally ended at a section of the Badin-Hyderabad Road where the participants held a demonstration and sit-in for more than six hours.

Vehicular traffic remained suspended on the otherwise busy road during the course of the sit-in.

Speaking to the protesters, the activists strongly criticised Hesco for failing to ensure uninterrupted power supply with full voltage to consumers in the town despite carrying out heavy loadshedding.

The excessive loadshedding and unannounced outages had made their lives miserable while voltage fluctuation had destroyed domestic appliances at many households, they said.

Ms Dalwani said that the women organisation came forward to lead the protest because it was the womenfolk that suffered most due to the situation. She said the organisation intended to raise other civic issues, besides waging a struggle against the artificial power crisis in the town.

The sit-in was ended after Hesco sub-divisional officer Waseem Korai and labour leader Usman Nizamani held negotiations with the Aurat Ittehad activists and held out the assurance that appropriate measures would be taken to curtail loadshedding and outages.

Published in Dawn, June 22nd, 2016