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GILGIT, Feb 9: The management of the state-owned Northern Areas Transport Corporation (NATCO) has sacked 34 drivers and their assistants reportedly for not turning up to their duties during the curfew breaks in Gilgit.
The largest public sector transport company in the region says that these employees were duly informed to reach their duties during the curfew breaks as they (management) needed them to ply their buses and trucks on Gilgit-Rawalpindi road for evacuation of stranded passengers in Gilgit during the curfew breaks and also to transport goods from Rawalpindi on the instructions of the local administration.
"But these drivers failed to resume their duties despite our repeated duty calls. They made different excuses to avoid duty in the most urgent times and eventually they were retrenched," an official of the transport company said.
The employees said that it was never possible for them to enter the curfew-stricken city. They said were not given any assurance that they would not be targeted during the duty at any point spanning from Gilgit to Rawalpindi.
SECURITY: The Northern Areas administration has taken extraordinary security measures for the protection and safety of over 75 Chinese engineers and experts working at 22-megawatt Naltar power project, official sources said.
They said that they had deployed the army jawans, frontier constabulary and police at two project sites in Nomal and also set up check points and bunkers surrounding the campsites in Nomal where security forces are guarding the foreign engineers round-the-clock. They said the campsites had been declared out-of-bound for the general public.
