Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, May 28: Police today foiled Secretariat Gherao of employees working with State Government in different capacity by charging batons on them and using water cannons. Over 100 of them were detained and later released by police while over a dozen of them were injured.
Thousands of daily wagers, contractual, need based workers and others of different State Government departments, demanding regularization of their service tried to Gherao Civil Secretariat this morning.
Thousands of employees from different parts of the Valley assembled near Exhibition around one km from Secretariat here under the banner of Employees Joint Action Committee (EJAC).
Raising slogans in favour of their demands, the employees started their march towards Civil Secretariat. However, a large number of Police and CRPF deployed around the Secretariat immediately swung into action and tried to stop the marchers who were insisting that they should be allowed to move forward.
Police resorted to lathicharge and used water cannons to disperse the employees. Traffic on main Budshah Chowk to Batmaloo and Rambagh was disrupted for several hours time due to clash between employees and Police.
Hundreds of employees drenched in purple colour water refused to give up and continued their efforts to Gherao the Civil Secretariat. Some employees managed to reach the main gate of the Civil Secretariat but were detained by the police and wisked away to Police Station Batmaloo and Shaheed Gunj.
Over a dozen employees were injured in police lathi-charge and they were given first aid.
The Government has decided to constitute a committee which will check the records about the appointment of more than 60,000 daily wagers, contractual and other employees without any proper sanction.
The previous NC-Congress regime shortly before Assembly elections in 2014 announced to regularize all these employees who had completed seven years in service. However, at the last minute the proposal was dropped following differences between two ruling alliance ministers about the actual number of such employees.
The employees from Public Health Engineering (PHE), Power Development Department (PDD), Horticulture, Agriculture, Road and Buildings and other departments are holding rallies and demonstrations frequently demanding their regularization.
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