For the lawmakers, the situation is about to hit the tipping point. People’s wrath on constant power outages in soaring temperature is mounting, and going by what is being said in cell phone text messages and social media, they are now gunning for the members of parliament.
An overwhelming number of messages is asking people to lay a siege on lawmakers’ residences and offices, instead of damaging public property.
Angry masses resorted to forwarding text messages a few days back, instigating others to besiege the houses and offices of their respective MNAs and MPAs. “It is an appeal to the people not to damage roads, buildings and other public property, instead besiege the residence or office of your MNA and demand electricity and gas supply or resign from office because otherwise he does not deserve to be our representative. Only this can bring a positive change or you can burn your own house and they will laugh at you,” one such Urdu text message says.
Similarly people have massively uploaded posts on Facebook, asking not to damage public property and only target the lawmakers. The message has sunk in with the outraged protestors, attempts at several public representatives were made, resulting in their guards opening fire on the mob, killing and injured people. MNA Riaz Fatiana’s house was attacked and his guards opened fire in which several got injured and were shifted to hospital.
In Sargodha, the mob has burnt a police van and attacked a deputy superintendent of police creating a law and order situation. Only the other day, angry protestors had attacked another MNA, Amir Yar Hiraj, with similar consequences.
People from different walks of life and various political inclinations are spreading these messages instigating people to demand proper supply of electricity and gas or their resignations.
“We have been psychologically impacted due to long power outages… The people’s life has collapsed from early morning till late night…The kids keep crying all night, what to speak of elders who are also constantly disturbed… The the poor and the middle class are victims of outages except only those very few who can afford power generators… We seem to have been transported to Dark Ages and it is severe mental torture,” Zeeshan Ansari, a lawyer by profession said talking to Pakistan Today.
To a question, he confirmed that he has also not only received a similar text message but has also forwarded to others besides uploading a post on Facebook.
“This is our right and we should fight for it, the public representatives should either address our concerns in parliament or resign from their positions,” Ansari added.