On the call of All Parties Conference (APC), a complete shutter-down strike was observed on Monday against the electricity and gas load shedding in Naudero.
All shops, bazaars, shopping centres, petrol pumps, pushcart vendors and medical stores’ owners closed their routine business for the day and participated in the protest.
The citizens gathered at the municipal roundabout. The residents took out a rally which marched through main roads and reached near Agani Petrol Pump, where participants staged a sit-in in the scorching heat which continued for six hours.
The attendance at government offices and schools was badly affected as all kinds of transport were shut and the roads gave a deserted look. Due to road blockade, traffic came to standstill from both Sukkur to Larkana and Larkana to Sukkur routes.
Rahmat Morio, Khalid Memon, Ghulam Hyder Narejo, Javed Bhutto, Mushtaq Kumbhar, Maulana Abdul Qudoos Panhwar, Naimat Narejo, AD Bhutto, Aijaz Leghari, Shahab Khan Shaikh and others were leading the protestants.
The protestants held placards, banners and flags of their respective parties in hands and chanted slogans against Federal State Minister Abid Sher Ali and other gas authorities concerned.
While addressing the participants, the leaders said that their protest will continue till their demands are met and a revised schedule is issued as per the existing policy.
They said that when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had declared that six-hour load shedding will be carried out in cities and eight-hour in towns and villages, why the Sukkur Electric Power Company (SEPCO) and Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGC) authorities are resorting to inhuman outages ranging from 14-hour to 20-hour on daily basis.
