Sacked govt employees stage protest in Peshawar

PESHAWAR: The sacked employees of different government departments on Thursday staged a protest and appealed to the chief justice and prime minister to review the decision and save thousands of families from starvation.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, the All Pakistan Skilled Employees Coordination Council’s spokesman Atlas Khan and others said about 16,000 educated youth from different provinces of the country had been recruited in various departments and organisations on merit in 1996.

He said the then PML-N government had removed these employees in 1997 due to political victimisation but they were reinstated through an Act of parliament in 2010. However, the Supreme Court's verdict in the case, pending since 2012, recently ordered the sacking of more than 16,000 employees, he said. Not only 16,000 workers were rendered jobless but thousands of families were also deprived of their livelihood, he added. Atlas Khan said after 11 years of service, the sacked employees neither would be able to get any other job nor had money to do business.