Rajouri: Power Department cuts entire town's electricity after clash with locals

Rajouri, May 31: In a bizarre incident, employees of Power Development Department snapped electricity of entire Nowshera town in J&K's Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir following an incident of scuffle with the locals.

The action of power employees sparked resentment among locals who also held a protest demonstration calling for action against the employees.

A police complaint has been lodged into the incident while the Civil administration has also started enquiry to ascertain all the circumstances in which the incident took place.

As per reports, an incident of scuffle happened in Nowshera town last night in which a lineman of Power Development Department namely Kewal Singh got injured, who was also hospitalised.

The injured official has also submitted a written complaint in local police station accusing two local men for assaulting him.

"They came in midnight hours and asked me to get the fault of a transmission line repaired to which I asked them to wait for some time but they started beating me with sticks and also hit me on head," said the injured official.

The officials, along with other employees including Engineers of department, visited police station to lodge their complaint.

However, these employees of Power Department, in order to lodge their protest against the incident and calling for action against the accused, snapped electricity of entire Nowshera town in Rajouri district putting people in severe trouble.

“Power got snapped in entire Nowshera town and other parts of sub division headquarter in the wee morning hours of Friday and we took it as a routine curtailment but now it has come to fore that the employees of department have deliberately snapped power." the locals said terming it high-handedness of power department employees.

The angry local residents hit roads and blocked main Gujral chowk in Nowshera town raising slogans against employees of department demanding stern action against them.

“Who can justify this? There was an incident of scuffle between an employee and two local men but what was fault of more than 25000 people." the protesters said adding that entire area was out of power since early morning hours of Friday.

They said that the employees of department made entire population hostage for no fault and this shows their high handedness.

“Who authorised them to curtail electricity of an entire town." the protesters further questioned calling for stern action.

Thereafter, a team of police and a team of civil administration reached the protest site and got the situation pacified after which locals met Additional Deputy Commissioner Nowshera in his office demanding for immediate transfer and action against the employees of power department who illegally snapped electricity.

Additional Deputy Commissioner Nowshera, Babu Ram Tandan told that the matter is being investigated.

“We are investigating the matter after delegation of locals met the civil administration informing snapping of electricity by linemen of department in the pretext of last night's scuffle incident." Tandan said.