KP prosecutors to go on pen-down strike today

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Prosecution Officers Welfare Association on Monday announced a two-day pend-own strike on Tuesday and urged the government to provide allowances and other perks and privileges to the prosecutors or else they launch a province-wide protest movement.

Speaking at a press conference, association president Sangeen Shah along with other office-bearers, including Zulfiqar Ali and Javed Ali Mohmand, said that prosecution was a vital component of the criminal justice system but the prosecutors were being deprived of their due rights under different pretexts.

The association office-bearers said Rs20,000 were fixed as allowances for a prosecutor in 2018 but even that was not being paid to the prosecutors working in the Anti-Terrorism Courts.They complained that though the grade of the prosecutor position was 19 and 20, the allowance of Rs20,000 had been frozen by the government for unknown reasons.

“Our Prosecution Department is working under the Home Department in KP while in other provinces, it is a separate department and its staff perform duties independently,” Sangeen Shah said, adding that KP government should also make a separate and full-fledged Prosecution Department.He said prosecutors were quitting jobs and joining other departments with lower scales due to the non-existence of service structure and facilities.