Deadlock: QAU employees stage protest, VC calls police

Employees Welfare Association’s executive body urges admin to meet their demands

ISLAMABAD: Vice-Chancellor of Quaid-e-Azam University sought police to help him out of trouble when employees unions reached outside his office protesting for the demands they have been making for long.

The protests was a peak into what has been brewing in the campus since the new VC Javed Ashraf took charge.

The protest was organised by Employees Welfare Association (EWA)’s executive body after a meeting with the administration a day earlier failed to yield any result.

In the wee hours of the morning over 150 employees reached the administration block and chanted slogans against the VC.

Their demands include leave-encashment, marriage grant, meeting of the departmental promotion committee being delayed for the long; ignoring the varsity’s own security staff and preferring a private company.

Many daily wagers were also among the protesters who are working here for the past few years and now want to be regularised.

Police reached the spot and urged staffers to remain calm but they did not budge off.

The VC told The Express Tribune that the protest is exploitation. “I have assured the daily wagers that nobody will lose his job,” he said, adding that they also demand extra time for extra work they do during their duty timings which is unjust.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19^th, 2015.