Wrong ways to record protest

The electricity crisis is not a new phenomenon in the country but the nation is being fed up with false promises of the government, ineptness of the bureaucracy, power outages of about 16 to 22 hours and the rising cost of energy.

People, whether live in rural or urban areas, resorted to protests, mostly violent in the past few days.

Apparently there are three aspects of the violent protest gripping numerous cities of the country that stand out. Firstly, the protests come at a time when the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has held its own rallies against the power outage.

Secondly, the law enforcement agencies, particularly police, showed little ability and activeness to stop the rioters and firebugs.

The last but not least aspect of the protest is that the angry protestors only target assets wearing federal tag, such as electricity supply offices, Pakistan Railways, and residences of lawmakers sitting in Islamabad.

Recently, the protestors instead of recording their protest peacefully, or merely damaging government properties, attempted to target elected representatives of the area.

One should consider that hurting the public representatives would not ease the situation and will only project an anarchic situation. Instead of resolving the problem, such incidents will increase miseries of hapless people.

At least two persons lost their lives in a similar situation in Kamalia when the guards of PML-Q MNA Riaz Fatyana opened fire on angry protestors who had besieged his home.

The political point-scoring of the PML-N in leading the protests is a confrontational policy against the federal government. Being holding a responsible position, he should record his protests at appropriate forums.

It is not that these riots do not reflect public sentiment but a more responsible course for the federal and provincial governments would have been to sit down together and jointly find a way out of the darkness.

The federal government badly failed to go beyond promises on the issue of power generation.

One only hopes that the protest might abate after the Ministry of Water and Power said the generation of electricity will be improved within 10 days. The government, however, will take strict action if they don’t stop protests.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=26545

Posted by Faisal Farooq on Jun 21 2012. Filed under Opinion, Pakistan, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.