Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, July 29: At least 50 Power Development Department (PDD) labourers were injured today as Police foiled the Secretariat gherao of casual labourers of the department who have been demanding release of their pending wages.
Hundreds of casual labourers assembled at Press Enclave here and shouted slogans against State Government and PDD authorities. The agitating labourers marched towards the Secretariat to press for their demands. However, police wearing riot gear and deployed in strength, scuttled their march by beating them with lathis, and spraying purple water over them as they tried to encircle the Secretariat.
President of the Jammu and Kashmir Casual Labourers Union, Mohammad Shafi Bhat, claimed that at least 50 labourers were injured in the police lathicharge, and about hundred were arrested.
Bhat said the Government has failed to release their wages despite JKCLU taking to streets time and again and even as the PDD Minister assured them earlier this month to release their wages within ten days.
The JKCLU president threatened to hold protest on the day of Eid-ul-Fitr along with their families if the Government fails to release their wages before Shab-i- Qadr.
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