Seeking justice: Sacked employees threaten suicide

Sacked employees threatened to immolate themselves if they are not reinstated and paid their outstanding salaries.

MANSEHRA:

Sacked employees of the National Tea Research Institute (NTRI) in Shinkiari on Monday threatened to immolate themselves if they are not reinstated and paid their outstanding salaries.

Speaking at a press conference, Malik Naseer, Muhammad Shamrez, Saeed Qayyum and Zahid Hussain Shah said that NTRI sacked over 20 employees of several cadres a few days back without giving any reason, due to which the employees are now facing severe financial problems.

They said they had served the NTRI for several years and worked sincerely to increase the yield of tea, which they claimed has saved
millions of rupees for the national exchequer.

However, they lamented that the NTRI project manager had sacked them without paying their salaries for the past four months. They rejected the notion that the institute was facing a financial crisis, adding that the ongoing project of research was worth Rs490 million, out of which Rs150 million were still unspent.

They also accused the NTRI project director of engaging in nepotism and mismanagement, adding that he had hired new employees on daily wages, which indicated that the institute was not going through any financial difficulties.

They claimed that an amount of Rs9 million is also present in the official account of the NTRI project director.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 25^th, 2011.