TOBA TEK SINGH: On the call of the Faisalabad Waste Management Company’s Ittehad Labour Union (ILU), all sanitary workers restarted their strike and staged a sit-in outside the offices of the company and the DC in Faisalabad over nonpayment of salaries.

The protesters put heaps of garbage outside the DC and FWMC offices in protest. There are reports that heaps of garbage were also witnessed in all the streets of all localities and bazaars of Faisalabad as Sunday was a holiday and sanitary workers remained on strike on Monday. The sanitary workers did not remove the waste from the garbage collection points across the city.

The workers had postponed their protest for three days during the last week after the officials had promised the payment of their salaries by Dec 15. They launched the strike when the officials did not fulfill their promise.

Addressing protesting sanitary workers, Ibrar Sahutra, the president of the ILU, said Christmas was approaching after few days but the workers had not so far been paid salaries for November and December by the FWMC while payment of honorarium for Eidul Azha and extra salary of the year had also not been made by the FWMC.

“That’s why the strike has been restarted for an indefinite period.”

Sahutra lamented that the injustice was happening with them for the last eight years and they were always paid salaries with delay.

Jamaat-i-Islami district emir Mahmood Butt, DHQ hospital workers union leader Yaqub Maseeh, PWD employees union leader Sufi Abdul Hafeez, lawyers Sakina Chaudhry, Atif Jamil Pagfan and Shahid Anwar, labour leaders Rana Naeem Dastagir, Lala Robin Daniel, Shafiq Ashraf, Tahira Anjum and Shahid Tanweer also spoke and supported the demands of sanitary workers.

SUICIDE: A young man committed suicide at Chak 164-JB Mahais of tehsil Chak Jhumra of Faisalabad.

Reports said Noman (25), the son of a farmer Afzal, quarrelled with his father over a monetary issue. After the quarrel, he locked himself in a room of his house. When his family members broke the door, they found him hanging from a ceiling fan.

ACCIDENT: A motorcyclist died and his pillion was injured critically in a fog-related accident on the Samundri-Gojra Road in Faisalabad.

Deceased Saleem of Chak 138-GB was on way to Samundri from Gojra when his motorcycle collided with a motorcycle-rickshaw. As a result, he and his pillion, Bilal, fell on the road.

In the meantime, a trailer coming from behind them ran them over, leaving both of them injured. Saleem succumbed to his injuries on the spot while Bilal was shifted to the tehsil headquarters hospital.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2023