RAWALPINDI: More than 700 jobless people on Tuesday became violent and ransacked the district health office at Khayaban-i-Sir Syed when officials cancelled interviews for paramedics.

The district health office invited more than 700 candidates from across the province to be interviewed to fill 100 vacancies for paramedics at rural health centres, basic health units and tehsil headquarters hospitals on Tuesday.

When the candidates arrived, the interview committee informed them that the interviews had been cancelled. This angered the candidates who had travelled from other parts of the province such as Jhang and Toba Tek Singh especially for the interviews.

Senior officials of the health department failed to pacify the candidates who started chanting the slogan of ‘Go Nawaz Go’. They also smashed signboards of health department offices.

A senior health official told Dawn that the Executive District Health Officer Dr Zafar Iqbal Gondal was not present on the occasion and District Officer Health Dr Khalid Randhawa was chairing the interview committee.

“Most candidates came from inner Punjab. After interviewing a few people, the officials announced that the interviews had been cancelled which created this situation,” he said.

District Officer Health Dr Khalid Randhawa admitted that some candidates staged protest as the department cancelled the interviews.

“We found some flaws in the advertisement. Due to a cleric error, the wrong eligibility for paramedics was mentioned. In advertisement, applications were sought from candidates with F.Sc in premedical but the rules allowed candidates with matriculation as well. Some candidates with Matriculation submitted applications but candidates would go to court if conducted interviews on false information so we decided to cancel the interview,” Dr Randhawa said.

“Second mistake in the advertisement was that the eligibility age for women candidates was written as under-30 years but the provincial government had changed the rules and decided to extend eligibility by three years so that women candidates can have a better chance,” he said.

He said that when the mistake was discovered a meeting was convened in which it was decided to cancel the interviews.

He said the officials tried to convince the candidates and after staging their protest, they dispersed peacefully. “It is wrong that they damaged property,” he said.

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2014