Sacking of 700 AIOU employees resented

Islamabad : Jamaat-i-Islami central naib ameer and former National Assembly member Mian Muhammad Aslam flayed the sacking of around 700 employees by the Allama Iqbal Open University and declared the move reprehensible.

"Those, who had promised to provide 10 million jobs to the people, are committing the financial murder of families by firing their members, many sole breadwinners. The suddenly and uncalled-for dismissal of AIOU employees in large numbers and that, too, even after 20-25 years service is a cruel and oppressive act, which should be reversed at once," Mian Muhammad told the sacked employees during a rally here.

The JI leader said the employees, who had served AIOU for years, should be restored.

He said the employees, who had served in government institutions for 25 years were entitled to pension but the AIOU had snatched away jobs from its 700 such employees by a single stroke of pen and thus, denying them even the right to pension.

"We demand the prime minister immediately restore all AIOU sacked staff members and issue orders for their service regularisation," he said.

Mian Aslam said the provision of employment, education and healthcare was the primary responsibility of the government, so the ruling PTI should fulfil that responsibility. He said at a time when inflation and unemployment were on the rise, firing of so many people in a single go was an unwelcome move, which would hit thousands of poor families, which depended on the income of sacked employees.