Violence erupted in various parts of the country on Tuesday in response to long spells of power outages. No doubt, it is the fundamental right of the public living in a democratic state to protest against electricity outages of this severity. Loadshedding has virtually paralysed their lives and brought it to a standstill. Unscheduled loadshedding and its undue prevalence in certain localities is what irks the public most. However, no matter how hard hit and frustrated the public is, it has no right to take law into its hand and play havoc with the public and private property. Burning of tires, a trademark of any protest or rally in our country, is also a futile activity as it does more damage than good. High-ups are hardly budged by this foolish behaviour; rather it is the environment that has to take the brunt of protesters' wrath as fumes of poisonous gases are released into the atmosphere. Similarly, causing distress to fellow citizens by blocking roads is also deplorable. Burning of the train in Faisalabad by the rioters needs to be condemned in the strongest possible terms. Protesters should stage sit-ins in a peaceful manner. After all the restoration of the Chief Justice is also the result of peaceful demonstrations and sit-ins. -ZAINAB IHSAN, Lahore, via e-mail, July 23.