Ahmedabad upper class display brute power as supply snaps

Some residents even stormed the Gujarat High Court to meet the Chief Justice to voice their grievances. Security had to be beefed up near the residences of some judges afterwards when an angry mob converged on them. Later, the AEC was forced to restore power supply to some of the buildings. AEC had received an order to cut electricity connections to these buildings from the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (AUDA).

Stone-throwing continued till late in the night and at least two firebrigade personnel were reported injured. Two local public transport buses were torched and a third one was badly damaged in stone-throwing.

Earlier, hundreds of residents came out of their houses in the evening, women in the forefront, to block traffic, to protest against the supply disruption. AEC vice-president (administration and personnel) Babubhai Patel said power supply to all 42 buildings was disconnected by late evening and was then restored to some buildings “looking at the situation.”

AEC teams that visited the buildings to cut supply had to face the wrath of the people. At Sarjan Tower in Memnagar area, the police had to be called in after the AEC team was mobbed.

A posse of policemen was also deployed at the AUDA office after several residents marched to the office to vent their ire. Rumours that a “menacing mob” had gone to AEC’s office and would later go to AUDA’s office were spreading, said AUDA chairman Surendra Patel, looking perturbed. The AEC said it had also sought police bandobust for its Naranpura office fearing public backlash.

In the high-rises the scenario was one of gloom: most people sat in their balconies to “escape the dark” while others lit candles to get out of it. In many buildings generators were switched on to operate elevators or to lift water to overhead tanks. Many residents said they did not have enough water.

People expressed their outrage in no uncertain terms. Sudha Shah, secretary of Goel Intercity (part III), said, “We have already written to AUDA that we are collecting money to install fire-safety equipment. So when we learnt that power supply would be cut in the evening, we went to AEC and AUDA, but nobody paid any attention to out complaint.” When the residents came back, the power was cut, she said.

The situation led to a lot of misery. An 80-year-old woman, living on the 10th floor of Goel Intercity, suffered a cardiac problem and had to be brought down by staircase, Shah said. A K Kaul of Sarjan Tower said the AUDA had no business to ask AEC to cut power supply. He said it was “outrageous that people had to pay the price for administrators’ mistakes.”

As lights in one building after another switched off, residents panicked and tried to find a lawyer who could save them. Shashi Gupta of Dhananjay Tower said residents did not even know that power supply would be cut as no one saw the notice AEC had pasted in the morning.