The electricity outages that hit most parts of the province for the last one week continued for several hours Friday, too, leading to public protests in the city and elsewhere in the province and its adjacent tribal areas. However, the gas supply situation improved a bit in some localities of the city and any queue in front of gas stations' dispensers, as witnessed Thursday, was hardly visible.
The protesters in the suburban locality of Nohtia, who took to the Sunehri Masjid road in Jumma prayers time, disrupted the traffic for sometime.
They were raising slogans against the government in front of the local sub-divisional office of the Pesco.
Another protest rally, held in Hanshtnagri, came on GT Road, asked the quarters concerned to put an early end to the load-shedding. It was started from Chaka Gali and culminated in a mammoth demonstration in Hashtnagri Chawk.
Similarly, protesters gathered at Qamardin Gahri Chawk on Kohat Road where the road also remained closed for both the foot and vehicular traffics for sometime.
The Passban organisation also held a protest rally in front of Peshawar Club and criticised the government for what the protesters called the deepening energy crisis.
According to the dispatches received here from The New correspondents, in Landi Kotal, hundreds of Sadokhel Afridi tribesmen blocked the Pak-Afghan highway for several hours in protest against the unannounced power outages in the border town.
They said the people had been forced to face numerous hardships due to the gas and power load-shedding, as the temperature in this mountainous area is below freezing point.
In Mardan the police resorted to baton-charge the protesters on the second day on Friday.
The procession of residents of Toru, Mayar and other rural areas, led by nazim Toru Union Council, Jehanzeb Khan, gathered at Toru from where they started march toward Mardan.
On reaching Sheikh Maltoon they were intercepted by the police. The protesters insisted on marching onto the Mardan town to register their protest against the power and gas load-shedding with officials concerned but police stopped them that led to a hide and seek between the police and protesters, which continued for an hour. The police ultimately thrashed the protesters to disperse them. It is to be mentioned here that on Thursday also the police baton-charged the protesters in Par Hoti.
Hundreds of protester also took to streets in Swat where the power and gas supply situation worsen on Friday. The residents of Landay Kas and Bangladesh localities gathered in Nishat Chawk of Mingora to protest load-shedding of the two utilities, which has now tuned into a kind of calamity.
The rally of protesting consumers of Wapda and Pesco were addressed by district nazim, Dr Khalid Mahsood, among others.
Later a meeting of the local elders asked the government to restore supply of both gas and electricity to avoid more harsh protests.
In Nowshera, the day remained comparatively peaceful where the Pesco and gas authorities held a meeting with local elders' delegation led by district nazim, Daud Khattak.
Speaking on the occasion, the district nazim also criticised the government for what he termed an artificial flour crisis. The officials of both gas department and Pesco assured the meeting of every possible cooperation.