Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Swabi, Charsadda, Kohat and Bannu between Thursday evening and the early hours of Friday over prolonged power outages in Ramazan. Speaker of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Asad Qaiser has threatened to postpone the ongoing budget session if Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) officials do not resolve the matter.
Earlier on Thursday, Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif announced manufacturing units across the country will be forced to face eight hours of load-shedding to prevent domestic consumers from suffering prolonged outages during sehri, iftar and taraweeh.
Up in arms
Over 3,000 residents protested in Chota Lahor, Swabi. The demonstrations gradually took a violent turn when a large number of protesters burnt down Wapda’s sub-divisional headquarters and the additional session judge’s office. The mob also ambushed a fire brigade which had arrived at the site to put out the fire.
Police officials told The Express Tribune equipment worth millions of rupees was destroyed in the fire at the subdivisional office. Police also took aim at the protesters with canisters of tear-gas. However, the mob grew increasingly violent and opened fire on police officials. Six people were arrested.
According to eyewitnesses, countless other offices in Chota Lahor were damaged during the protest.
Subsequently, the crowd blocked Islamabad-Peshawar motorway and only dispersed after Swabi DCO Matiullah Khan and DPO Sajjad Khan assured their grievances would be addressed. Wapda officials also assured protesters power outages will only take place as per schedule.
Sticks and stones
Residents of Shabqadar and Prang also took to the streets Thursday evening and Friday morning following prolonged power outages.
In Shabqadar, protesters threw stones at a grid station. Maqbali Khan, in charge of the grid station, told The Express Tribune, people had come out after iftar on Thursday and after sehri on Friday.
“They shouted slogans against Pesco and the government,” he said. “Some of them attacked the grid station.”
Similarly, in Prang, an angry mob gathered outside a grid station at 2am on Friday. Police managed to force the crowd to disperse and took some protesters into custody. Cases were registered against them.
In a separate incident, protesters gathered at a grid station in Farooq-e-Azam Square. There law-enforcement officials arrested 20 people.
Protests were also held in Kohat and Bannu.
Hitting out
Reacting to the protests, Qaiser lashed out at Wapda officials over prolonged power outages during Ramazan. Addressing a news conference at the K-P Assembly in Peshawar on Friday, Qaiser said unscheduled load-shedding was part of a conspiracy to destabilise law and order.
Reading out a statement of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif which said load-shedding would be limited to eight hours in villages, he commented, “The PM’s announcement was violated the same day it was made; this is beyond our understanding.”
He voiced anger over the destruction of Wapda’s office in Swabi. “Following the Swabi incident, I tried to contact the Wapda officials,” Qaiser said. “However, no one responded so I decided to contact the chief executive of Pesco who said routine power outages had been used as a means of reducing the excessive load in Swabi.”
According to Qaiser, his hometown Swabi faced 20-hour-long blackouts because Pesco was following Wapda’s formula.
“If the matter is not resolved within a day, we will postpone the ongoing budget session and call for a special discussion to find a solution to prolonged power outages,” he added.
Crisis management
Pesco responded to the situation and in a statement issued on Friday said, “Pesco Chief Executive Syed Hassan Fazil rushed to Charsadda and Swabi today to personally investigate the situation and issued special instructions.”
According to Pesco, the illegal use of electricity was the prime reason for long outages.
“The problem can only be addressed if electricity bills are paid on time and illegal kunda connections are removed,” read the statement.
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