KARACHI – Saleem Shehzad, a former employee of the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) awaiting court orders for reinstatement, died on Sunday after suffering a full cardiac arrest.
A resident of Ranchore Lines, Shehzad was among the 294 management-cadre employees sacked in April 2010 by the KESC management on charges of “poor performance and misconduct,” sources told Pakistan Today. The company’s stated reason for firing these officers was that they had failed to deliver despite repeated warnings.
The sacked employees then moved the Sindh High Court (SHC), but of the 294, only 45 employees managed to secure a stay order. The rest were awaiting reinstatement order through the same court, sources said, but they were receiving their remunerations through courts. Shehzad was among this group of employees, whose case was scheduled to be heard on the 29th.
This is not the first instance of a sacked KESC employee dying of a heart attack: three others – Asif Raza, Malik Aashiq, and Javed Akhtar – also faced the same fate. Raza, who worked as a technician at the Korangi Thermal Power Station, was at work when he received his termination letter. He could not bear the shock and died of heart failure at the spot.
In December 2009, the KESC had terminated 150 employees from service, while over 170 workers were sent to the surplus pole. In January 2011, the company fired almost 4,300 employees, but they were later reinstated on the intervention of the federal and provincial governments.
KESC People’s Workers Union Secretary-General Lateef Mughal held the management of the KESC responsible for all cases. “These families have not only lost their loved ones, but also their primary breadwinners,” he said. Mughal said that his union shows its grief over the sad demises of yet another of their colleagues, and the sad bit is that the KESC is sacking employees without any reason.
