Excelsior Correspondent
POONCH, Oct 15: Residents of Surankote held strong protest demonstration against PHE authorities for providing unhygienic water supply in the town and blocked Jammu-Poonch highway for over three hours.
Reports said that the people of the town were complaining for the last one week that drinking water being supplied to the town by the PHE authorities was giving foul smell. The locals took up the issue with the Tehsildar as well as the Executive Officer of the local Municipal Committee and even the PHE officials but there was no response at all.
Today morning some body noticed a dead dog lying in the water pool created at the point where there was water leakage in the main water pipe. They noticed that around the valve at the pipe at this water leakage joint, there was bad smell in the pool and its surrounding. There was massive leakage and this dirty water was going into the water supply pipe in the town and the department had not taken cognizance of the issue or removed dead animal.
Many people gathered there and got furious. Then they moved to the main bazaar and raised barricades at around 10.30 am and started protest demonstration against PHE. The people got agitated and shouted loud slogans against Administration and PHE officials. No senior official including SDM, Tehsildar AEE etc dared to face the unruly public. Nearly 500 to 700 people had gathered there. The Naib tehsildar was sent to talk to the agitating public, but had to face the wrath of the public. He was allegedly man handled by the mob. Sanjeev Kumar and Pintoo Sharma alleged that they had talked to Tehsildar and even the EO Municipality Surankote, but they did not bothered over the issue. Krishan Rana and Farooq Malik alleged that people of the town were falling sick for the last more than two weeks and water was giving foul smell but we were in the notion that due to recent floods some water must have been gone into the pipes as pipes were also damaged.
A large number of vehicle remained stranded on the busy highway for long. Later, SHO Surankote Ashiq Hussain pacified the agitating people and assured to get the things right. No PHE official dared to come to the site as the people were in great anger. The highway was cleared at around 2 pm.
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