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| May 30, 2005 | Monday | Rabi-us-Sani 21, 1426 |
PTCL headquarters standoff continues
ISLAMABAD, May 29: Amid reports of a deadlock in talks between the PTCL management and union leaders on Sunday night, knowledgeable sources in the capital said there was a possibility of police and Frontier Constabulary storming the Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) headquarters to evict the protesting workers who have been in virtual control of the place since Wednesday.
It was learnt that more than 200 FC men and about 400 policemen had taken position in the lawns of the headquarters building in the Capital’s Sector G-8/4. In view of the situation, some of the union leaders and a number of workers are reported to have left the site bringing down the number of protesters to around 250. Before the movement of the policemen and FC personnel, about 600 workers were in the building. At around 11:45 pm only about 160 to 200 of them were said to be in the headquarters.
The union leaders said that law-enforcement personnel hiding in the nearby forest could attack the building late in the night or early in the morning. The union leaders accused the management of adopting a non-serious attitude towards their demands. They said the management had promised to the union leaders on Saturday that they would prepare a draft of incentives for workers by Sunday morning, but they did not do so.
“When we contacted them on Sunday morning they told us to wait till 3pm and now it is evening and they are yet to come up with any draft,” a union leader said.
Federal Minister for Information Technology Awais Leghari told a private TV channel on Sunday that those who opposed the privatization of the PTCL would be severely dealt with. He said the privatization process could never be rolled back. The union leaders in the speeches at the headquarters criticized the minister for calling the protesting workers “miscreants and challenged him to a debate on any television channel and prove his point.
“If the minister proves the privatization in the interests of the country then we will call off the strike, but if we prove that the government’s decision is myopic and against the national interest then the minister must resign,” member of the PTCL Union Actions Committee Shaukat Satti told Dawn.
A spokesman for the workers action committee Mr Azad Qadri, alleged that the government wanted to put workers under psychological pressure by moving the Frontier Constabulary (FC) personnel.
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