LAHORE: The visually impaired people restarted their protest on The Mall on Tuesday night when Hamza Shahbaz did not meet them as promised by a provincial minister earlier in the day.

The visually impaired had been staging a sit-in outside the Punjab Assembly building since Monday evening, seeking their recruitment orders immediately. Their talks with Punjab government spokesman Zaeem Qadri had failed on Monday.

The assembly staff, lawmakers and media men had to use the Duty-Free Shop gate instead of the main entrance to reach the assembly as a number of protesters again assembled there on Tuesday.

PTI leaders Mahmoodur Rashid and others joined the sit-in. They also arranged food for the protesters.

Social Welfare Minister Haroon Sultan, however, engaged them. Convincing them to end their demonstration he took a representative delegation of theirs to Model Town for a meeting with the chief minister’s son.

But, Hamza reportedly did not give them audience and the annoyed protesters returned to their “job” late on Tuesday night.

Their issue was earlier raised in the Punjab Assembly by opposition MPA Khurram Jehangir Wattoo through a point of order but acting Speaker Sher Ali Gorchani discarded the matter terming the attitude of the protesters regrettable even before the treasury could submit its point of view.

“We respect the special persons otherwise there is no tradition of such protest on the premises of the Punjab Assembly,” said Gorchani, lamenting that “despite security threats to the House we provided them space and food but they tried to take advantage of the respect by attempting to gatecrash the House proceedings.”

The chair said Zaeem Qadri and the assembly staff held talks with the protesters till early hours of Tuesday and now the home minister was holding parley with them.

PML-Q’s Khudija Umar said had the promises made with the special persons two months ago been met, the situation would not have arisen.

The chair replied that a V bill to increase jobs quota for the special persons from two to three per cent had been tabled and is likely to be passed by month-end; therefore the protesters should also be patient and directed that they should be shifted to some other place from the assembly building.

At this, Human Rights Minister Khalil Tahir Sindhu reminded the chair that the task was to be done by his (assembly’s) staff.

Published in Dawn March 4th , 2015

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