Jammu: The Jammu and Kashmir unit of the Congress on Monday extended support to Kashmiri Pandit employees engaged under the prime minister’s package for migrants who have been protesting for relocation to safer places outside the Valley.
Cracking down on the agitating employees, the Jammu and Kashmir administration has issued orders to stop their salaries. The employees have been staging a dharna since May when one of the employees, Rahul Bhat, was shot dead by terrorists in his office in Budgam.
“The migrant employees have been protesting for about four months now, and instead of paying heed to their genuine demands, the BJP, through the lieutenant governor, is blackmailing them by withholding their salaries,” JKPCC spokesperson Deepika Singh Rajawat said.
“I am astonished to see this administration threatening these employees to fall in line at such a sensitive time when the security situation in the valley is in shambles,” Rajawat said, adding that their salaries should be released immediately.
By stopping their salaries, the administration is trying to exact revenge from them for a crime they have not committed, the Congress leader said.
“Instead of devising a robust solution to the ensuing crises in the valley, this regime is trying to crush them into submission. The regime is further victimising an already battered and victimised community,” Rajawat said.
“All genuine demands of the protesting employees must be conceded and the order withholding their salaries shall be immediately withdrawn,” she said. “A proper and suitable transfer policy should be invoked for the welfare of migrant employees and treating them like a liability on the Union territory should be stopped.”
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