Municipal employees protest against sanitation officer getting beaten up

Say the officer wanted to resolve the matter peacefully but was attacked by PTI workers.

PESHAWAR: Employees of the municipal corporation boycotted their duties on Tuesday to protest the use of violence against a sanitation officer by workers of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

They gathered at Bacha Khan Chowk and were led by the president of United Municipal Workers Union, Malik Naveed. They announced that they will not tolerate one of their own getting tortured by political activists.

Naveed said PTI’s president of Union Council (UC) 12 Wajid Khan and other party workers had allegedly tortured municipal corporation’s chief sanitation officer Riaz Awan and his driver while they were on duty.

He said the problem started on Monday morning when the union workers were doing their job as usual but Wajid interrupted them. He wanted to take the municipal corporation’s Suzuki vehicle and Awan was called in to deal with the matter.

On Monday, workers of the organisation gathered at the municipal office and then, later, outside Gulbahar police station to protest against the PTI activists, who allegedly tortured United Municipal Organisation (UMO) workers.

While talking to the protesters at a previous gathering on Monday, UMO’s general secretary, Muhammad Fazil, claimed that Awan tried to solve the issue peacefully but the PTI workers turned violent.

The same day when people reached Gulbahar police station to register an FIR, the official of the station refused. This led the workers to protest outside the police station. The chief municipal officer, Javen Amjid, had to intervene for the protesters to stop and disburse peacefully. The union president said that the PTI should control their workers.

Meanwhile, PTI’s provincial information secretary and MPA Ishtiaq Urmer said a three-member committee had been formed to look into the matter.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 12^th, 2014.