KARACHI: Jamaat-iIslami has warned that its `peaceful protest` against K-Electric should not be taken as `weakness`.

Speakers at the party`s protest sit-in at Nursery on Wednesday said that despite police`s batoncharge, teargas shelling and bring on peaceful workers and protesters on Sharea Faisal and arrest of the entire JI leadership on March 31, the movement against KE further intensified and peopletook to the streetsfortheir rights.

They said the party was protesting to recover Rs200 billion which the KE had received from Karachiites through `overbilling`, adding that the utility had failed to produce required electricity and meet demand, leaving people to suffer prolonged power outages. The speakers accused the KE of fleecing small consumers byincreasingits tariff.

Holding banners and placards, the participants of the sit-in chanted slogans against the powerutility, National Electric Power Regulatory Authority and the federal and provincial governments and demanded an immediate end to loadshedding, overbilling,fuel adjustment, meter rent and double banl( charges.

The charges received in the name of employees should be returned to the people, they said.

Speaking on the occasion, JI Karachi chief Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman said that KE`s highhandedness against people had beenexposed,butthe government and the adminis-tration continued to protect the utility.

He said the MQM and Gen Pervez Musharraf had sold the KE and pushed Karachi into darkness despite `our protest against its privatisation`.

He said that after the JI`s four-day protest against the KE, the Sindh governor had promised to resolve the issue within 15 days, but he had failed to do so. However, he said, his party would not give up and continue to struggle for people`s rights.

The sit-in was called off late in the night.