PESHAWAR, Feb 1: The employees of the Frontier Provincial Cooperative Bank have announced that they would hold a demonstration against the closure of the bank throughout the province on Saturday.

Speaking at a news conference here at the Peshawar Press Club on Friday, Ishaq Ahmed, chairman of the Officers and Employees Association and Mohammad Humayun, president of the association, said that the FPCB had been a profit-earning organization for the last few years. But, it had been closed by the NWFP Governor without hearing the version of the employees, they added.

They said that both the associations had decided to launch a protest drive by staging demonstration and hunger-strike in all the 24 districts. The government had rendered over 250 employees jobless by ordering liquidation of the bank, they added.

The bank had been providing loans to farmers of Frontier for the last many years. The State Bank governor had appreciated the recovery record of the bank, they added.

They asked the government if they had decided to close the bank, it must strike golden hand-shake with the employees.

They said a local court in Mardan had stopped the liquidation by granting them a stay-order, but the Peshawar High Court had rejected it. “The judges, who have taken an oath under the PCO are against the working-class people”, they added.