WAZIRABAD - Hundreds of workers from various Cutlery Units, flanked by outages-stricken citizens took to streets in protest against the prolonged unscheduled electricity loadshedding. The protesters burnt tyres on roads and rushed towards the Grid Station but the police stopped their march to avert any ransacking here.
As per detail, hundreds of factory workers who had been rendered unemployed by the 20-hour long power loadshedding and citizens including students, carrying batons gathered near Islamabad Morr here and started raising slogans against the government.
They condemned the prolonged loadshedding and marched through Sialkot Road, Kutchry Chowk and overhead bridge where they gathered at Chowk Masjid-e-Musafiran. They burnt tyres and blocked the roads by staging a sit-in.
Meanwhile, the protestors marched towards Grid Station on GT Road where the offices of SDOs 1, 2 and 3 divisions, XEN and
Revenue are also situated.
However, the police personnel fenced the premises of the Grid Station to avert any unpleasant incident.
The protesters then marched towards Maulana Zafar Ali Khan Chowk and blocked the road for all kind of traffic towards Sialkot, Wazirabad, Rawalpindi and Lahore which caused severe gridlock.
Meanwhile, DSP Amjad Ali Tarar, Saddr Police SHO Malik Muhammad Fayyaz and City Police SHO Muhammad Ashfaq Pehlwan along with a large number of personnel, in riot gear, rushed towards the protesters as result of which they dispersed.
The hide and seek remained continued between the cops and the protesters for about a half an hour.
The Saddr Police baton charged some protesters near Cardiology Centre. The protest continued for 3 hours which created worst traffic mess.
It is pertinent to mention here that worst energy crisis has hit the entire world specially South Asia and Pakistan is no exception. People across the country are launching protest against long-hour un-scheduled load-shedding but the government has turned a deaf ear to the public demand. Meanwhile, All-Pakistan Cutlery Association and Markazi Anjuman-e-Tajran Wazirabad gave a strike call for Wednesday if the Gepco failed to rationalise loadshedding duration till Tuesday.