A local court on Thursday granted the bail-before-arrest applications of 12 Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) employees allegedly involved in an attack on the power utility’s head office on August 29. Additional District and Sessions Judge Shahid Hussain Chandio granted the pleas of the 12 KESC workers including union leaders against a sum of Rs 50,000 each, after hearing the arguments from their lawyers Haq Nawaz Talpur and Kamran Hakro. The case against the protesting employees was registered on the complaint of KESC’s security officer Colonel (retd) Asif Saeed. The president of KESC Labour Union, Akhlaq Ahmed, was arrested on the spot and is still behind bars.
The other workers were earlier declared absconders in the case registered at the Defence police station. KESC employees, Shaukat Sanbhal, Usman Baloch, Saeed Khan and Muhammad Boota among others pleaded through their counsels Talpur and Hakro that they were not involved in the attack on the KESC head office and had reached there only to collect their four months due salaries as per the commitment of the KESC administration. However, instead of disbursing their salaries, the company’s security guards deputed outside the office opened fire at them and wounded more than 10 workers, they stated. The counsels stated that even the court had issued an order to lodge the complaint of employees against the KESC administration. After hearing their arguments, the court granted the bail-before-arrest pleas of the employees. It is worth noting that despite orders issued from the same court six days ago, the Defence police have not registered the complaint against KESC Managing Director Tabish Gauhar and security officers Saeed and Colonel (retd) Wahid Asghar.
