Hundreds Faisalabad Electric Supply Company (FESCO) workers staged a demonstration on Monday in front of Fesco headquarters on Sargodha Road to demand immediate arrest of those who killed a Fesco linesman on Saturday night.
The protesters chanted slogans against the police as well as Fesco authorities. They demanded that the bereaved family be paid a suitable compensation.
Ghulam Akbar, who worked at the Fesco subdivision in Sahianwala, was shot dead allegedly for unearthing and reporting electricity theft at an outhouse in Chak Jhumra.
The protesters said that the consumers Ghulam Muhammad and Jameel had allegedly threatened to kill him if he reported the theft to the Fesco authorities. Akbar had, however, gone ahead and reported the theft that had resulted in the removal of electricity meters from the place. They said the suspects shot him on Thursday.
Akbar was taken to Allied Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries three days later.
Family of the deceased said that an FIR had been registered against the suspects, but the police had not arrested them yet.
Mian Iftikhar Ahmad, the Pegham Employees Union general secretary, led the protest.
He said two days after the Madina Town superintendent of police assured the family that the suspects would be arrested, they were roaming free.
He alleged that that they (suspects) were pressing the bereaved family to forgo prosecution.
He condemned the Fesco authorities for not providing security to its field workers. He said the Fesco authorities had termed the incident a result of an enmity, and not an electricity theft.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 16th, 2013.