Pakistan becomes powerless. Over 114 cities across Pakistan in midnight had a sudden blackout as the NTDC transmission lines tripped, as per government officials. It could take time for full normalcy. According to a member of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, Abid Qaiyum Suleri, the nationwide blackout was a result of a broken 500KV power transmission line.
The entire country has gone dark, including Karachi, as well as Lahore, Multan, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Sialkot, Sahiwal, Gujranwala, Peshawar and Bahawalpur, Sputnik reported. Special assistant to the prime minister Shahbaz Gill was quoted as saying by the Dawn that the energy minister Omar Ayub's entire team is working on the issue.
The incident took place at 11:45 p.m. on Saturday, leaving more than 200 million people go without power. It is estimated that the electricity will be restored in Karachi and Islamabad within 3 hours and the rest of Pakistan by 8 a.m.
Indian attack or martial law?
But as the country plunged into darkness on Saturday, Twitter was abuzz with reactions and possible theories. Pakistan can downplay the success of India's surgical strikes all it wants, but the fact that one power outage has caused panic across the country about a possible martial law or Indian attack paints a different story.
Only recently, a former Pakistani diplomat claimed that India killed 300 terrorists in the Balakot airstrikes that took place on February 26, 2019, in retaliation for the Pulwama terror attack, in which lives of 40 CRPF jawans were lost. Pakistan Army, however, has maintained that there were no casualties from the airstrike.
It is surgical strikes such as this that has the people of Pakistan on edge. The reactions of some Pakistanis are a clear indication of the same.
