Guard to get job back after suicide threat

LAHORE:

A security guard at the Lahore College for Women University (LCWU) was promised his job back after he climbed an electricity pole and threatened to kill himself here on Monday, the latest of a growing number of such protests.

Rescue officials were eventually to bring Muhammad Nawaz down after a standoff lasting several hours that was broadcast live on television. He agreed to come down after he was assured that the university would hire him again.

Nawaz, who is from Azad Kashmir, had threatened to kill himself as he had lost his job as a security guard. An LCWU spokesman said that Nawaz had been hired on a one-year contract and his job had automatically ended when the year was up.

Another security guard who lost his job, Safdar, had gone up the pole to convince Nawaz to come down. He too is to get his job back. Three similar protests made the news in Lahore last year. In March, a rickshaw driver climbed an electricity pole to protest against being ticketed by the traffic police. Dozens of other rickshaw drivers followed the first climber to join the protest.

In May, a man climbed up a pole in Sabzazar to protest after his son and brother were locked up by the police. In September, an employee of Model Town Society also climbed up a pole and threatened to jump off after he was demoted for taking too many days off.

He said that he had been forced to take days off because his son was being treated for cancer.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 5^th, 2013.