Unmet demands: Revenue dept workers dispersed with teargas, batons

Employees of Sindh Revenue Department say they will continue protests till demands are met.

KARACHI: Around 20 protesting employees of the Sindh Revenue Department were detained by the police when they tried to take their protest to Chief Minister House on Monday.

A large number of employees of the Sindh Revenue Department staged a protest outside the Karachi Press Club at noon. After demonstrating for at least four hours, the protesters decided to take their protest outside CM House to try and pressurise the government into fulfilling their demands.

However, as soon as protesters began to march towards CM House, several police officers showed up with water cannons to try and disperse them. When the protesters resisted the orders, the police began using batons and fired teargas shells. Several protesters were detained and were taken to different police stations in Saddar.

"We did not start beating the employees, they [protesters] first beat my officers with sticks and batons, which then left us with no choice but to take action against them," said Saddar division SP Salman Hussain. "I even took them to CM House to sort out the issue but they came back with the matter unresolved." Hussain also said that they will register cases against the arrested protesters for attacking the police.

An emergency meeting was also called by the All Revenue Sindh Employees Associations. In the meeting, the relevant officials announced to continue the protests till their demands are fulfilled. "Our demands are simple; we want increments in our salaries and the powers of the magistrate," said one of the protesting employees, Azhar Ali. 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 6^th, 2014.