Avtar Bhat
-Excelsior/Rakesh
JAMMU, June 16: To accelerate the struggle for establishment of separate AIIMS in Jammu region, Coordination Committee for AIIMS whose members are on chain hunger strike for last five days today gave a 72 hour Jammu bandh call from June 19 to June 21 in support of their demands.
The decision in this regard was taken in a meeting of the Coordination Committee. The Chairman of the Committee and president Jammu Kashmir High Court Bar Association (JKHCBA), Jammu, Abhinav Sharma. while announcing the 72 hour bandh call said it is warning to coalition that if it failed to concede the twin demands that is establishment of AIIMS at earliest and completion of artificial lake on river Tawi the people of Jammu will be constrained to go for indefinite bandh.
He also announced a Public Relation Committee comprising of former Bar Association president, B S Slathia, president Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI), Rakesh Gupta, Chairman Passenger Transport Welfare Association, S Trilochan Singh Wazir, president Oil Tankers and Pump Owners Association, Anan Sharma, president Shri Amar Kashtriya Rajput Sabha, Narayan Singh and secretary general, Press Club of Jammu Zorawar Singh Jamwal.
Later addressing a gathering, Sharma said the people of Jammu who have met discrimination on all fronts are fed up with the nature of governance in the State. The Government is brazenly Kashmir centric and anti-Jammu and the Party which the enthusiastic people of Jammu province voted in Lok Sabha and Assembly elections has cheated them in a most brazen manner.
He said people of Jammu province were never treated so shabbily as it happened during the present regime and the plight of people under present regime has become highly pathetic.
He said the so called pro-Jammu party handed over to the PDP vital portfolios of Home, Finance, Revenue, Planning , GAD, Public Works, Education, Employment, Tourism, Agriculture, Law and Parliamentary Affairs, Public Distribution System and so on as also additional AIIMS and Super Specialty Hospital to Kashmir even before becoming the part of Government. The people of Jammu region continued to suffer worst form of discrimination in all spheres, he further added.
He also criticized the new recruitment policy of the Government saying it has trampled upon the rights of unemployed youth ruthlessly.
He urged the callous authorities to read the writing on the wall and adopt a holistic approach to the issue confronting the people of Jammu province. The Jammu province and its people are part and parcel of the State polity and they deserve equal treatment with the people of Kashmir at all levels, he added.
Meanwhile, the members of AIIMS CC today clashed with police at Tawi bridge when they squatted on the road and blocked traffic for about half an hour. As the police tried to lift the members of Coordination Committee squatting on the road a clash ensued between the two. The members of CC jostled with the police to prevent it from lifting the youth squatting on the road. The drama continued for some time.
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