Local Meddling With Power Costs PDD Staffer His Life

SRINAGAR: A daily-wager in the Power Development Department was electrocuted in South Kashmir’s Kulgam district when a transmission line he was repairing was allegedly charged by locals impatient to watch a cricket telecast, reports said.

Ghulam Nabi Sofi was killed in his native Wanpoh area at around 6:30 on Sunday evening even after having switched off power to the line he was working on.

Eyewitnesses said that some local residents keen to watch a live cricket telecast uplinked the transformer to restore power supply when Sofi was carrying out the repairs.

“A cricket match was being telecast live, and power was switched on by some local cricket fans,” the executive engineer for the area, Sheikh Muneeb, said. We have registered a first information report (FIR) at Yaripora, and the police is ascertaining the facts.”

The engineer made an appeal to people not to interfere with power installations as it posed grave risk to life and property.

Meddling with transformers, which are mostly exposed and easily accessible to locals, and illegal “hooking” of transmission lines is a widespread practice in Kashmir together with the PDD’s use of untrained personnel on jobs requiring technical training and skill.

Officials said that Sofi had been working as a daily-wager for the PDD for the past 13 years.  

Meanwhile, protests broke out in his native village of Krewan in Wanpoh where people demanded action against those involved in the incident, and compensation to the victim’s family.  

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