STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Peeved over the callous attitude of the State Government towards the miserable plight of the plus two contractual lecturers who are observing chain hunger strike for the last 41 days and which included female lecturers in majority, Harsh Dev Singh, Chairman JKNPP and former Education Minister, lambasted the dispensation for making a mockery of the tall ‘Beti bachao, Beti Padhao slogan bugled by the Centre and the State Governments.
He was addressing a press conference, here on Sunday.
Harrowed by the Friday protest lodged by the aggrieved lecturers, Harsh accused the State Government for compelling the protestors to come on the roads to draw its attention towards their miseries.
He said that the protest only brought disgrace to the incumbent government when several female teachers squattered on the road over Tawi Bridge for seeking genuine demand of their regularization of services and were maltreated and Lathicharged by police.
He lamented that the government’s apathy towards the 41-day old protest had established the fact that it had been treating the educated youth like disposable commodities by divesting them of due share in the employment.
Admonishing the coalition and BJP in particular, Singh said that the slogans of Achey Din and Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao were only Jumlas for the public consumption and to hoodwink the gullible masses.
He wondered that what kind of regime was running in the State where the youths were tormented and daughters of the soil were made to languish under the open skies.
Expressing his concern for the waning protestors, Singh regretted that the chain hunger strike had deteriorated the condition of many lecturers but the State Government had despicably failed to respond to the call of the teaching community as none from the dispensation so far bothered to pay visit to the venue despite knowing about their worsened health.
Perturbed over the trauma faced by Vinod Kumar, a contractual lecturer who had continuously observed fast for 32 days, Singh said that the protestor was rushed to the hospital for urgent medical intervention when his vital parameters plummeted to alarming level and during the course of struggle his mother tragically collapsed in shock. He further maintained that the condition of another lecturer Seema Rajput who had been observing fast for the last 15 days was deteriorating severely day by day.
He revealed that she had been living with one kidney and the hunger strike might take a serious toll on her health.
Singh lambasted the Education Minister for his recent hard bitten remarks on the fate of several such contractual lecturers who had given several valuable years of their life to the education department and were ruthlessly terminated by the government after taking their services for more than a decade. He warned the sinister BJP-PDP combine of serious consequences if anything untoward happened to the aggrieved protestors. Expressing solidarity with the plus two contractual lecturers, he said that the teaching fraternity had been rendering their services with zeal and honesty in schools on paltry salary with a hope that they would be regularised to earn with dignity and honour.
“The selfish interests of the MLAs and the ministers, incentives and jobs for the stone pelters, subversives and criminals in Kashmir and highly contemptuous treatment meted out to the educated youth showcased the fact that the State Government was appeasing the secessionists for the purpose of running the regime and was least concerned about the highly educated youth including females agitating on roads”, Harsh added.
The former Education Minister reiterated his demand of regularisation for all such highly qualified lecturers who had been shamefully ostracized by the BJP partnered government and pledged to fight until they were ensured rights with dignity and honour.
He urged the Chief Minister to settle the issues of contractual lecturers to standby the truth that the actual place of teachers was in the classrooms and not under the roadside tents.