JI protests against power load shedding in Karachi

KARACHI: Most parts of Karachi experience heavy Traffic jam on Friday morning as Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) holds a strike against K-Electric to protest against load shedding and shortage of water across the city.

JI workers come out to protest against load-shedding in areas of the city including main Shahrah e Faisal and Malir.

While addressing a press conference JI Karachi Chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman yesterday said that the party will not call off the strike and will protest peacefully against the issues of Karachi.

He also said that the Prime Minister had promised to look into the issue but still, there seems to be no visible outcome and the city still suffers irregular and unscheduled power load shedding.

Rehman along with the other leaders of the party’s Karachi chapters including, Birjees Ahmed, Usama Razi, Abdul Wahab, Saif Uddin Advocate and Rashid Qureshi leading the protest.

Previously other Political parties had also agreed to support this protest and the traders’ community, transporters and, labour organizations including All Pakistan Organization of Small and Cottage Industries had expressed their support to the JI‘s strike call.

“Karachi has witnessed the era of strikes in past but JI calls for a peaceful strike is not aimed to disturb the peace of the city. JI wants to resolve the people’s issues and has given a strike call to condemn the injustice to the people,” said Rehman.

The Karachi Bar Association (KBA) has also commended the strike call against unbearably long loadshedding hours, shortage of water and other issues of the city.

KBA general secretary Ashfaq Ali In a statement said that the Bar, “…fully endorsed the peaceful strike and the KBA stands with the people of Karachi and assures its full support on the issues being faced by them.”

Meanwhile, Muhammad Atiq Mir, Chairman Tajir Ittehad Karachi has spoken against the JI strike call saying that the traders are already suffering from losses worth Rs 10 billion due to the decline of sales caused by the unscheduled power cuts and cannot afford to sit in a strike at this point.
A shutdown strike will cause them further losses to the tune of Rs 3.5 billion in a single day.