Police Thursday foiled casual labourers protest march. They were demanding release of their withheld wages. The protestors assembled under the banner of J&K Tourism Casual Labourers Union Kashmir at Press Enclave here and raised pro-justice slogans. They said their wages have been withheld from July 2014. “It has been now 19 months, authorities are not releasing our earned wages,” they rued.“Imagine our plight. We are people who have been working for the betterment of department day and night. The reward for our honesty and sincere hard work is that we are forced to take streets to demand even release of our earned wages,” they said.We are facing immense hardships as we have no other source to feed our families. We are unable to deposit school fee of our wards,” they said.
One of the casual labourers, who was part of protest told CNS that his parents need some life saving drugs periodically. “I had been borrowing it from one of the pharmacists. However, he has stopped it to provide me now as I failed to pay his bill in absence of release of my remuneration from the department,” he rued. Another casual labour said that his ward was forced to drop schooling after he failed to deposit his tuition fee. “We have been apprising higher ups about our grievance and demands. However, our pleas have fallen on deaf ears,” they said.They appealed Governor NN Vohra adding, “We will launch an agitation if we are deprived of our earned wages and are not released shortly.”Police detained scores of them as they tried to march towards busy Residency Road and lodged them in police station Kothibagh. (CNS)