Sacked KESC workers go on a rampage

KARACHI – Some 4,000 sacked employees of the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC), who were laid off from non-core or redundant departments late on Wednesday, attacked the power utility’s head office in Gizri on Thursday, ransacking private property and vehicles.
Protests began on Thursday morning, as enraged employees staged a sit-in outside the power utility’s head office to demand the company to revert its decision. Many of the employees had reached their offices on Thursday morning, only to find out that they were neither needed nor allowed to enter the KESC premises. The security guard claimed that there were merely 50 men on guard duty to resist a mob of 5,000 people. The guards assumed that the workers wanted a dialogue with the KESC executives, but instead, they ransacked property and cars inside the premises.
Some also broke iron pipes from a fountain nearby, and smashed the windows of the building. Cupboards and lockers were broken, while company records were torn. Computers and furniture of the company were also destroyed. Those working inside the building rushed out of their cabins and left the building through the back door in an attempt to save their lives. But a mob of enraged employees rushed towards the parking area, and shattered the windscreens and windows of some 127 cars that belonged to executives and other employees.
Workers’ unions of the Karachi Electric Supply Company’s (KESC) have vowed to continue protesting and disrupting operations until the 4,000 sacked employees are restored. People’s Workers Union Secretary Lateef Mughal told Pakistan Today that the sudden dismissal of thousands of employees was a criminal act Until the filing of this report, many protesting employees had arranged winter clothing as they planned to sleep on the street outside the KESC headquarters in preparation for a protest on Friday. Meanwhile, the KESC condemned the “criminal negligence” of the law enforcement agencies in protecting the lives of the KESC officials from a mob attack, and demanded the provincial and federal governments protect them from “hooliganism.”