PTCL standoff Workers plan to hold demonstration, court arrest
By Sher Baz Khan
ISLAMABAD, June 16: While the Privatization Commission announced on Thursday that it had completed arrangements for the PTCL transaction process on Saturday, the Pakistan Telecommunications Workers Unions Action Committee said it was working on a plan to organize a protest demonstration on the day, either in Islamabad, Lahore or Karachi.
The commission said the arrangements would include full audio-video coverage and the event would be open to accredited correspondents of print and electronic media.
Some union leaders said seven of the 29 members of the action committee were in detention and the remaining ones were finalizing the plan to gather as many workers as possible to take part in the demonstration and to court arrest.
“The best venue of the demonstration could be Lahore as bringing a large number of workers to Karachi is not possible because of its location and they will be unable to enter Islamabad owing to unprecedented security measures,” they said.
A spokesman of the action committee told this correspondent that lack of support from the workers’ unions of Wapda and other organizations, whose privatisation was on the cards, and lukewarm response from political parties had forced the action committee to postpone its plan of jamming the telecom network.
He said eight of the nine components of the action committee were still against the privatisation and ready for staging demonstrations and offering arrests.
He said more than 250,000 subscribers were facing difficulty on account of faulty telephone lines across the country because of the workers’ strike.
According to him, only seven to 10 per cent of the PTCL staff was attending offices, including clerical staff and some contractual workers of the Telecom Foundation who were being threatened to be fired.
The technical staff of the PTCL was still not coming to offices, he added.
There was a complete strike in southern Balochistan, central Punjab, the NWFP and at the PTCL headquarters here, he claimed.
Some union leaders said more than 1,000 PTCL workers and male members of their families had so far been arrested from various parts of the country under anti-terrorism laws.
The state machinery was in full swing to intimidate the workers and force them to join offices on June 18, when bidding would be held for 26 per cent shares of the company, the workers leaders said.
The action committee condemned the arrests of the workers and demanded their immediate release. It said: “If those opposing the PTCL privatisation are terrorists, the government should also arrest those political leaders, some of them from ruling coalition, who have supported the struggle of the workers.”
The committee said in a statement that security forces were constantly harassing the contractual and women workers of the company on telephones and in many cases, security personnel had gone to the homes of employees and asked them to join duty or prepare for facing terrorism charges.
PPI adds: Nadeem Haider, a leader of the action committee, has reiterated the threat to jam the telecom system across the country on Saturday.
He told journalists that there was no question of any comprise on principles and warned: “We will reach the place of the bidding to halt it.”
