Violence broke out in Bhajanpura area of east Delhi as 400 angry residents protested on Tuesday night against prolonged blackouts and damaged a DTC bus and injured its driver and a constable. Three people were arrested.
The violence came on the night before the peak power demand set a new record for the season with 5,470 MW around 2.45 pm on Wednesday. Through the day, power cuts and low voltage continued to plague large parts of the city.
Political posturing over the grim power situation in the City continued with the Congress holding protests and former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to fix the accountability of power distribution companies and reduce the electricity bills by 30 per cent as promised by the BJP in its Assembly poll manifesto.
The Tuesday night violence on Road Number 66 in Bhajanpura started around 11.30 pm when 400 people from Kardampuri Colony blocked the busy road to vent their anger against the unscheduled load shedding.
“The drama continued for a couple of hours when the protestors decided to vandalise a Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) bus and injured driver Om Parkash,” said a senior police official.
Additional Commissioner of Police V V Chowdhry said: “Three people have been arrested.”
Those arrested were identified as Ubed Rehman, Nawab Ali and Wasim, all aged around 20. “The accused were sent to Tihar jail by a court,” said Bhajanpura Station House Officer Subhash Chander Constable Billy Yadav of Jaffarabad police station was injured in the incident while trying to disperse the crowd.
Meanwhile, residents of north Delhi’s Sultanpuri, led by the Congress leaders, held a protest against power cuts of up to 12 hours. Sultanpur Majra legislator Jai Kishan sat on a hunger strike till evening.
In the Mundka Assembly constituency, Congress leader Naresh Kumar and his supporters blocked Rohtak Road, near the Lokesh Cinema, for over one hour.