A massive protest erupted in Srinagar on Wednesday as contractual employees from various government departments took to the streets demanding regularisation.
Protesters gathered at the Sher-e-Kashmir Park and raised slogans against the government.
They were upset at the government not fulfilling its promise of setting up a high-level committee to look into the demand for regularisation.
“The state government had announced during the Budget session that a high power committee will be constituted in this regard. However, two months have passed since and a high power committee has not yet been constituted. Our demands are being presented in a wrong way. The government says that we are demanding salaries but our demand has been the same since 2009, it is regularisation and even today we are demanding the same,” said president of Kashmir Physical Health Engineering (PHE) Joint Employees Association, Sajad Ahmad Parray.
The police used tear gas, water cannons to stop the protesters from marching towards Lal Chowk. The police also resorted to baton charging to disperse the crowd.
Dozens of protesters were injured and several others were detained.
State finance minister Haseeb Drabu had in April announced the formation of a high-level committee to look into the issue of regularisation of contractual workers. (ANI)