Enraged citizens take to the streets against power outages

Infuriated residents on Wednesday took to the streets in several parts of Karachi as they held demonstrations and blocked roads against power breakdowns and prolonged load-shedding.

Lashing out at the K-Electric management for their failure to ensure uninterrupted power supply, residents in Liaquatabad, Sultanabad, Malir, Lines Area, Abyssinia Lines, Lyari, and other areas took to the thoroughfares to protest against the power utility.

Protesters said the duration of load-shedding had exceeded 12 hours, while they were having low voltage too. They said they had been in a hell-like situation for several days due to power outages but the KE did not resolve the issue. They said the power outages had created a shortage of water too.

Protesters said the KE officials were carrying out load-shedding in various areas of the city more than the scheduled duration, causing hardships to consumers. The protesters blocked Shahrae Quaideen, but reopened one of its tracks after talks with police and Rangers officials. They shouted slogans against the KE and demanded a halt to unscheduled load-shedding. They ended the blockade after KE officials assured them that no load-shedding would be done at night.

In Malir, a protest procession was taken out by hundreds of residents against the unscheduled load-shedding. In Lyari, residents of Miran Naka, held a protest to express their anguish against the power outages. Police and Rangers tried to pacify the protestors but to no avail in many areas.

The KE management maintained that the power cuts were caused by faults and tripping in areas with power theft. “The shortage of furnace oil and gas has also affected the company’s power generation capacity,” they said.