Strike paralyses work in J&K government offices

Work in most government offices across Jammu and Kashmir remained paralysed on the second day of three-day strike on Friday.

The strike by some 4.50 lakh employees has been called by the Joint Consultative Committee (JCC), an umbrella group of several employees’ unions, to press for their demand to increase retirement age to 60 years and regularisation of daily wagers.
Dozens of employee leaders were arrested at the main gate of the Civil Secretariat on Friday when they tried to stage a ‘Secretariat ghero’.

Senior JCC leaders Abdul Qayoom Wani, Mohammad Khursheed Alam and others who were arrested on Thursday remained in detention on Friday.

The JCC leaders made it clear that the Governor House ‘gherao’ will go as per schedule on Saturday.

“We won’t budge an inch from our stand. Let the government do what it can,” Wani was quoted by a vernacular news agency as saying from the police station.

Ready for negotiations

The state government on Friday said it was ready to hold negotiations with striking employees and appealed to them to stop the agitation.

“We had opened channels of negotiations with the JCC through commissioner secretary of GAD and we want employee leaders to meet the chief secretary,” said law and parliamentary affairs minister Ali Mohammad Sagar.

He asked the employees to withdraw the strike and give the government a reasonable time to take decisions.