Hat trick: Flowers and president’s picture fail to get NCHD employees to the red zone

The police met them with water canons and tear gas for the third time.

KARACHI:

For their third attempt of marching into the red zone to register their protest, the employees of National Commission for Human Development (NCHD), who came from 23 districts of Sindh, were armed with flowers and 40 kilogrammes of rose petals. They even carried pictures of Benazir Bhutto, President Zardari, Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah and MNA Faryal Talpur as conciliatory gesture.

But unfortunately for them, their protest coincided with the time when the president was meeting with coalition partners to discuss Karachi’s law-and-order at Bilawal House. Like their earlier attempts, this one too was met with bursts of water cannon.

At first, the police warned the protesters not to enter the red zone. But when they didn’t listen, the police shelled them with tear gas and chased the employees who threw rose petals at them. “It was a peaceful protest. Being educated people we responded with rose petals to brute force,” said Bahadur Bhurgri. “We are only asking the government to fulfill the promise they made last year.”

He said that the government should implement the Supreme Court’s order to make the NCHD employees’ jobs permanent. “Federal minister Khursheed Shah had also promised us the same thing,” added Bhurgari.

He has been detained by the police with seven others, Ghafar Kathyo, Ghulam Mustafa Soomro, Riaz Soomro, Abid Hussain Rajput, Khair Muhammad Mangrio, Mumtaz Marri and Mumtaz Soomro.

Bhurgri claimed that he and Mustafa Soomro was also seriously injured. “We were not taken to the hospital for treatment,” he said. “Soomro’s left eye was hit directly by a water cannon burst.” The employees say that they will not go home until they are given permanent jobs. For the last 27 days they have been camped outside the Karachi Press Club in protest.

They organised their first protest march near Bilawal House on March 27. After that they made two more attempts to march into the red zone, on April 2 and April 12. Both times the police dealt with them using water canons, tear gas while manhandling the protesters. No government representative has reached out to them for negotiation. The chairman of NCHD’s action committee, Muhammad Daim Janwari, told The Express Tribune that MPA Hasnain Mirza, the son of National Assembly Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza and the former provincial home minister, Dr Zulfiqar Mirza, contacted them and assured them of his support. “He visited our camp after our last protest and condemned the police’s behavior,” he said. “He also assured us that our issue will be taken up in Sindh and National assemblies. We hope this promise will be fulfilled.”

Published in The Express Tribune, April 24^th, 2012.