MULTAN, July 25: A large number of internees sacked by the present government took out a rally here on Friday.

Organized by Internees Association Multan, participants of the rally burnt their degrees and established stalls of ‘paan’ and ‘naan’ in protest.

President Pervez Musharraf had recruited 31,000 internees for a period of one year in March 2007 for a monthly stipend of Rs10,000 under the National Internship Programme.

All masters degree holders, they were inducted in different federal departments, including Railways, Economic Affairs, Foreign Office, Income Tax and Customs, throughout the country.

All the internees were sacked after the completion of their internship period by the present government.

Association president Malik Bashir Ahmad said the sacked internees, including women, had come from Bahawalpur, Muzaffargarh, Dera Ghazi Khan, Khanewal and other cities to participate in the protest.

He said the protesting internees had burnt their degrees to make the rulers realized that these were just useless papers if the government could not provide them jobs.

Mr Ahmed demanded of the government to regularize the sacked internees because they were facing financial crunch.

Mehwish Jabeen said the PPP government had failed to implement its own electoral manifesto wherein it pledged to provide jobs to the educated youth.

She urged the government to save the future of the educated youth because they got training in various departments.

Tanveer Ahmed demanded the reinstatement and regularization of the internees immediately.