Reserved category employees continue protest for transfer from Kashmir

Reserved category employees working in Kashmir protesting outside the office of Div Com Jammu on Friday. —Excelsior/Rakesh
Reserved category employees working in Kashmir protesting outside the office of Div Com Jammu on Friday. —Excelsior/Rakesh

Excelsior Correspondent

JAMMU, June 3: For the second consecutive day on Friday, reserved category employees from Jammu, working in Kashmir, staged a protest demonstration here today seeking their immediate transfer to home districts.

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These employees have returned to Jammu after their colleague Rajni Bala was shot dead by terrorists at a school in South Kashmir’s Kulgam district on Tuesday.
Under the banner of ‘All Jammu-based Reserved Category Employees Association’, the protesters had taken out a march from the Press Club Jammu to Ambedkar Chowk yesterday and followed it by another sit-in outside the office of Divisional Commissioner Jammu on Friday.
The protesting Government employees, mostly teachers, were demanding their transfer from Kashmir to their home districts in the Jammu region following a string of targeted killings by terrorists in Kashmir.
“We are not going to return to Kashmir to resume our duties in the prevailing alarming situation following the targeted killings. We prefer to die here rather than go back,” they said and urged the Government to take note of their protest and ensure their transfer from Kashmir to the Jammu region.
Women teachers, who took part in the protest, clearly refused to return to the Kashmir Valley because of the security issues. “Where are the safer zones in Kashmir? We have to move out, drop our children at local schools and attend to our duties,” a woman said.
She said they were living happily with the local population in Kashmir over the past decade and claimed that targeted killings have triggered fear among them.
The protesting employees continue to agitate till their transfer from Kashmir Valley to Jammu.