Residents protest hours-long power outages

BATKHELA: The residents of various villages here Saturday staged a protest against the unscheduled power breakdown and blocked the main road for six hours. Led by Member Provincial Assembly (MPA) Shakeel Khan, union council nazim Muhammad Zahid Khan and Asghar Ayub Khan, the angry residents from Baghona, Mezara, Sabar Shah and other villages chanted slogans against the officials of Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco). Speaking on the occasion, the leaders said that the Pesco officials were forcing the peaceful people of the area to take the law into their own hands. Prolonged loadshedding had not only added to the miseries of the people but had also created acute water shortage in mosques, they lamented. They asked the government to transfer executive engineer and sub-divisional officer or else a protest campaign would be launched.