People’s right to decent life has already been taken away and now they are being deprived of their right to protest. Taking to streets for voicing their demands and grievances is the fundamental right of the masses but they are being oppressed through state machinery and police. The government should put an end to its policy of violence upon the protestors. The conduct of the rulers has clearly manifested that the masses and their rights do not figure in their priorities. The violence committed on hapless protestors against the load-shedding represents the extreme of misuse of authority by the government. One hand, people have been robbed of their basic requirement and they are being dealt with iron hand when they have taken to streets to vent out their demands.

Sheikh Zahid Fayyaz, senior niab Nazim-e-Ala of MQI, expressed these views while talking to journalists after emergency meeting of Central Executive Council of Pakistan Awami Tehreek and MQI. He said that people’s businesses and other sources of generating income had adversely been affected by the on-going energy crisis. The so-called policy makers, he said, could not understand the state of the masses by sitting in air conditioned room. He asked the ruling elite to mend their ways or the flood of public anger would sweep them away. He said that load-shedding also destroyed national economy by incurring a loss of billions of rupees on daily basis. Had an end to load-shedding been anywhere on the agenda of the powers that be, the people would have got rid of this scourge long time ago.

Sheikh Zahid Fayyaz said that the present government is unable to offer any concrete plan to end load-shedding. It has consistently failed to give any deadline. The hike in power tariff on monthly and weekly basis is tantamount to burying the poor while alive, he maintained. He expressed his shock over the fact that despite load-shedding of 12 hours on daily basis, people were getting inflated electricity bills. He asked the government to give a solid course of action or lest it should be prepared to be drowned in the vast ocean of public discontent.