Police break up protest outside Tarbela Dam offices

HARIPUR: The police on Thursday baton-charged and arrested several protesters for blocking entrance to Tarbela Dam offices and colonies.

Eyewitnesses said the residents of various localities of Ghazi tehsil blocked the access road to Tarbela Dam offices and residential colonies in protest against what they called ignoring area residents in jobs for the 5thTarbela Dam extension project.

The World Bank-funded 1530 MW T5 project was recently launched in Ghazi tehsil and the Wapda authorities had promised to allocate a certain quota in jobs for locals.

But according to Irum Rasheed Tahirkheli, a local social activist, the Wapda officials ignored the locals and started hiring their favourites.

The protesters started the rally from Rizwan Shaheed Chowk in Ghazi and staged a sit-in at the Ghazi-Tarbela Dam check-post early in the morning and the protest continued till evening when police resorted to baton charge and arrested Irum Rasheed and several other protesters.

The protesters disallowed traffic to and from the offices of Tarbela Dam and residential area for about three hours, causing a traffic mess on both sides of the busy road.

Speaking on the occasion, Irum Rasheed and other speakers accused the Tarbela Dam authorities of hiring employees from other areas while there were hundreds of educated youth belonging to localities that had rendered sacrifices of their land for Tarbela dam and Ghazi Barotha power project, jobless and under the law deserving to be given priority but the dam administration allegedly preferred their favourites to earn illegal gratifications.