Govt. workers, police clash in Indian-controlled Kashmir

PressTV
May 8, 2013

Indian police scuffle with Public Health Engineering department (PHE) government employees during a protest in Srinagar on May 8,2013.

Hundreds of government workers have held a protest rally in Indian-controlled Kashmir, demanding a pay rise and the regularization of contractual jobs.

Fierce clashes also broke out in the Wednesday rally after police forces tried to disperse the protesters marching through the summer capital, Srinagar.

Indian police arrested dozens of the protesting government workers.

“The government should appoint (as permanent) all those workers appointed from 1994 to November 2005, and pay regularly the wages of casual workers appointed after November 2005,” said Sajad Ahmad Parray, the chairman of the All Kashmir PHE Casual Laborers Association.

Last month, a number of protesting workers were injured when similar protests, organized by the public health engineering department, broke out in Srinagar.

The employees had threatened to launch massive protests if their demands were not met.

DB/AS