Thousands of protesting electricity consumers attacked a Pesco grid station in Bannu and forcibly switched on a shut feeder for the restoration of electricity in their area on Saturday. According to the spokesperson of Pesco, more than 2,500 people swarmed the Guluzai grid station and started hurling stones at the Pesco installations. The enraged protesters also subjected to torture the staff of the grid station. Then the people forcibly turned on the feeder which the Pesco staff switched off to make up for the line losses.

The spokesperson said that 84% line losses were reported from this feeder. The besieged Pesco management called the police for security following the attack by the protesters. It may be mentioned here that several feeders and transformers worth millions of rupees had gutted in a fire that engulfed the NDC Jaranwala grid station on Monday last.As the grid station had caught fire, the supply of electricity to all the feeders had suspended depriving the entire FESCO region of the availability of power. Everything in the grid station was reduced to ashes including a 40-MVA transformer.

 The rampant fire caused loss of millions of rupees to the national kitty. The worth of the burnt transformer was around Rs80 million. The management had then shifted the 1,500 ampere load of Jaranwala grid station to other grid stations of the FESCO.

 
Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)