Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Oct 8: Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Mir Saifullah today said that Government was open to negotiation with the striking employees in case they are interested.
The Minister said that Chief Minister has authorized the Chief Secretary to handle the issue, adding that in case the employees are willing for talks, they can approach him.
On the release of detained employee leaders, the Law Minister said that law will take its own course.
The Minister was responding to the issue raised by PDP MLA Syed Basharat Bukhari, CPIM MLA Tarigami, NPP MLA Harshdev Singh and PDP MLA Abdul Rehman Veeri in the House during the Zero Hour. They were demanding release of the employee leaders and holding of negotiations with them to end the crisis.
In the meantime, the state employees began an “indefinite hunger strike” today to press the Government to implement the agreement signed by them with Government.
Joint Consultative Committee (JCC), an amalgam of various employees’ unions, had been agitating from the last two years to press their demands, which include among other things, extension of retirement age from 58 to 60, regularization of daily wagers, removal of pay anomalies in the clerical cadre, besides budgetary support for Public Sector Undertakings.
“In case these demands are not met, the movement will be intensified and the functioning of important departments may get affected. The employees can never be held responsible as onus is on the Government to fulfill these legitimate demands in a time-bound manner. The Government is competent enough to resolve all these issues, if they wish,” they said.
After assembling at Revenue Complex, Bemina, the employees sat for an indefinite hunger strike today. Earlier, this week dozens of employees’ leaders were detained and are lodged in Central Jail, Srinagar.
“At least 23 of our leaders are in Central Jail, and authorities are not allowing their friends or family members to meet them. We have been conveyed that health of some leaders is deteriorating because of the continuous detention and the authorities are not allowing medicine for them,” said Jammu and Kashmir Teacher’s Forum Provincial President, Mohammad Afzal Baht.
Bhat said imposing these severe restrictions on them are violations of human rights and the Government would be responsible for any consequences on their health.
Bhat said the employees have been protesting in a democratic way for their rights, but the Government was suppressing their voice. “We will continue our struggle till our demands are met and for that a new programme would be charted out very soon,” he said.
The employees said to express solidarity with their detained leaders, they have decided to observe October 10 as the ‘solidarity day’ and have appealed to all employees across the State to wear black bands on their hands.
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