Police baton-charge protesters

KARACHI - Police on Thursday baton-charged and fired tear gas to disperse a big rally of protestors who were trying to proceed to Sindh Assembly building here on Thursday morning. Around 200 protestors who were demanding their regularisation in National Programme for Improvement of Watercourses, Sindh had specially traveled from the interior Sindh to the City to hold a protest rally in favour of their demands. First they staged a protest in front of the Karachi Press Club and later tried to march towards the Sindh Assembly building. Around 50 to 55 protestors including their leaders were taken into custody. The protestors reassembled in front of Karachi Press Club and staged a sit-in demanding release of their colleagues. They declared that they would not end their sit-in until their arrested colleagues were released. Speaking to The Nation, Waqar Hussain, their leader and a civil engineer, told that they were working for the last five years but had not been regularised by the government despite submitting the summary to the chief minister Sindh which was tabled for the last 11 months for acceptance. Workers from grade 1 to 18 are here for regularisation of their jobs and we appeal to the chief minister Sindh to regularise our jobs before June 2010 because our contract will be finished, he added. He said that 75 per cent of the watercourse work had been completed out of 33,000 watercourses. Their jobs must be regularised alike the regularisation of civil aviations 4,000 workers. Hussain mentioned that the police officials while manhandling broke the pictures of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto which was a very shameful act appealing the President to take notice for this development. He warned that the sit-in will remain continue until the release of their leaders including Ayub Burdi, Altaf Shiekh, Numan Channa and others.