Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Oct 29: Police today detained four Employees Joint Action Committee (EJAC) leaders when they were holding a meeting to chart a plan to resume their agitation to press the implementation of the agreement signed between the Government and them.
EJAC leaders were holding a meeting at Agriculture Department in Lal Madi here when policemen in dozens barged into the premises of the department and whisked away four of their top leaders.
“The police whisked away JCC President Abdul Qayoom Wani, Farooq Ahmad Trali, Mian Imtiyaz Hussain, Shabir Ahmad, and detained them in Police Station Rajbagh,” said Mohammad Afzal Bhat, an Employees Joint Action Committee member.
Station House Officer, Rajbagh, Riyaz Ahmad, said the employees’ leaders were not detained, but their meeting was thwarted by police as the Government had ordered this week not to allow any anti-Government activity in the premises of any Government office.
“We didn’t detain any employee leader, but to thwart their meeting we took them away for few hours,” Ahmad said.
EJAC President Abdul Qayoom Wani told Excelsior that the Jammu and Kashmir has been turned into a “police state” where democratic voices are being choked by the State apparatus.
Wani said they were meeting in the premises simply to discuss future course of their agitation which they would put before Joint Consultative Committee’s executive body for the resumption of their agitation, but police had turned the whole Agriculture Department premises into a police garrison.
“Any force used by the Government to thwart the trade union from demanding its rights and genuine demands will be met with a strong movement,” Wani warned the Government.
The agitating employees are demanding the Government must implement the agreement reached between them and the former in September 2011, which includes extension of the retirement age from 58 to 60, regularization of daily wagers and removal of pay anomalies in the clerical cadre, budgetary support for public sector undertakings among others.
“The next phase of agitation will be more intensive in nature and we will even go for an indefinite strike. From now nothing can be ruled out as the Government is pushing us to the wall for taking extreme steps,” he said.
Earlier this month, 120 JCC leaders were lodged in Central Jail after Government invoked ESMO against them for demanding their rights.
However, the Government had said in Legislative Council that all the demands of the employees were met, except increasing the retirement age from present 58 years to 60 years, decision on which will be taken after considering the concerns and opinions expressed by all stake holders.
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