Altaf Hameed Rao
MIRPUR (AJK): A power consumer here on Wednesday exercised self-life attempt in front of the local office of the AJK Electricity Department by setting himself on fire after having been utterly sick and perplexed of the alleged hostile behavior of the concerned officials of the department towards his repeated complaint about excessive billing of his domestic power supply connection.
The power consumer, identified as Ansar Najeeb, a resident of local Thothal locality was shifted to the intensive care unit of the local Divisional headquarter hospital in critical condition with severe burn injuries he suffered during his abortive attempt of suicide.
According to details, gathered by this Correspondent on Wednesday, the power consumer Ansar Najeeb, a worker in a local service station and father of three kids, was alleged being constantly served with the wrong bill of his domestic electricity connection to the tune of high volume of amount for about last four months by the local revenue office of the AJK Electricity Department Mirpur. He had repeatedly lodged the complaints with the local Sub Divisional about the alleged wrong billing of his power connection with request for issuance of the correct bill against the electricity he had actually consumed during the concerned months besides for restoration of the power supply connection, which the department had disconnected for lack of depositing of the bill. But all of his requests went in vein despite roaming pillar to post in the offices of the Electricity Department.
On Wednesday, Ansar, again came to the office of the concerned Sub Divisional Officer of the Electricity Department Mirpur city division with the repeated request about rectification of his overbilling and restoration of his disconnected power supply connection – but in return allegedly faced the same negative response from the concerned officials.
After receiving the traditional hostile response again from the concerned officials of the Electricity Department, the perplexed and upset Ansar set him-self on fire by sprinkling petrol in front of the SDOs’ office. People gathered there rushed to rescue him and extinguished the fire flames. Later he was shifted to the Mirpur DHQ hospital with severe burn injuries – where his condition is stated to be critical.
