Cable operators announce extending Karachi strike against K-Electric to Hyderabad, Sukkur

KARACHI: The Pakistan Cable Operators Association's strike against the K-Electric in the metropolis would continue, its chairperson Khalid Arain said Tuesday, adding that body would also extend the protest to Hyderabad and Sukkur.

As a result, cable TV services and Internet remained suspended for three hours today, between 7pm and 10pm in all three cities.

A day earlier, to protest against what was termed as the power utility's "highhandedness", services were shut down for two hours between 7pm and 9pm.

"We condemn the cutting down of our wires by K-Electric staff," said the association's general secretary, Chaudhry Tahir, adding that the staff is "constantly" cutting down their cables.

Tahir also accused the K-Electric of "blatantly lying" to people. He said the power utility had been approached to grant the service providers a three-year period to complete the laying down of cables underground.

Cable operators shut down services

Yesterday, the cable operators association had shut down cable TV and Internet services in a symbolic strike, earning the ire of many a consumer.

The consumers expressed horror at two private companies engaging in a protest war despite billing "consumers on a monthly basis regardless of quality or availability of Internet or TV".

Arain, the cable operators representative, had warned that if the power utility did not desist from cutting down the cable TV and Internet wires and give the operators time to lay down an underground network, "we will hold a two-hour symbolic strike daily and shut down the service across all of Pakistan".

The K-Electric said wires were being cut down because it was "illegal and unsafe" to use electricity poles for a distribution network of cable TV and Internet services.