HYDERABAD, Sept 21: A large number of contractual employees of the Sui Southern Gas Company staged a sit-in outside the local press club on Sunday to demand regularization of their services and protest against victimization of their leaders.

Speaking on the occasion, the general secretary of the Mazdoor Union Action Committee, Riaz Akhtar Awan, said that the contractual employees were technical workers and some of them even had postgraduate degrees.

He said that in Karachi such employees were being paid between Rs2,000 to Rs3,000 per month while in the interior of Sindh, their salary ranged between Rs1,200 and Rs1,800.

Mr Awan said that the employees were being made to work for 12 hours a day and in case of illness, they were not provided any medicine.

The labour leader said that he had been placed under suspension for raising his voice and other leaders of the contractual employees — including Mohammad Tariq, Mohammad Saqib and Mohammad Roshan — had been sacked.

He appealed to the prime minister and federal minister for petroleum to take notice of the excesses against the workers.

Mr Awan warned that if the problems of the workers were not resolved, they would hold protest demonstrations in Karachi, Islamabad and Quetta.