The PM Package employees posted across Kashmir valley are on an indefinite protest in Jammu as well as in Kashmir since the gruesome murder of their colleague in broad day light in the crowded Tehsil office in Chadoora district of Budgam on the fateful day of 12,May.The heinous killing of a junior assistant Rahul Bhat scared the package employees and sent shock waves among the package employees in particular and the Kashmiri Pandit community in general. Since this dastardly killing of the package employee, all the package employees are on a continuous strike against the killing and are demanding the right to life as guaranteed under article-21 of the constitution.
They are demanding their relocation/shifting/adjustment or attachment with the Relief commissioner’s office Canal Road Jammu. The hapless package employees have continued their protest in hot and humid as well as in rainy-monsoon season and these vagaries of nature did not deter them from continuing their agitation. The Package employees have been on the protest for last over seven months in support of their one point demand of relocation/shifting to Jammu till the situation in Kashmir will become normal for their living and working in Kashmir.
But the insensitive and indifferent centre government of BJP and the LG administration is not paying any attention and heed to the issues of the package employees on protest. The government is ignoring their strike and genuine demand of relocation to Jammu till the conditions become normal and conducive for performing duties. In the present atmosphere where targeted and selective killings of the employees and the non local labours are continuing, the package employees cannot perform their duties across Kashmir. There is perpetual and continuous risk to the package employees and there is every possibility that once they join their duties, the armed marauders will kill and harm them. Thus the government should not force and pressurize them to resume duties in Kashmir where conditions are at all favourable for their working.
The Pandits have no social acceptance in Kashmir and they were performing their duties in fear,scare and duress from 2010 and all along they have been demanding their shifting to Jammu. Instead of providing some succor to these employees on protest and instead of listening to their concerns, the government of the UT is sprinkling salt on their wounds. It is a sorry state of affairs that the majority of DDO’s have stopped the salaries of these helpless employees to coerce them to end strike and force them to resume their duties in valley against their will. It is pertinent to mention here that the Package employees are not a part and parcel of the establishment, but they are working on super numeracy posts which means that their posts are additional posts and their absence from duties will not affect the official work in any way and thus the question of withholding of their salaries does not arise.But the DDO’s have stopped their salary which is against rules and regulations.
Thus they have been put on trouble,suffering and hardships due to the stoppage of the salaries of majority of the package employees.The government seems to be hell bent to put these employees to inconvenience and has thus stopped their salaries in these bad times of soaring prices. These package employees have no other source of income than their salaries and so stoppage of the salaries has compounded their problems.They are on the brink of starvation and many of them do not have the money to pay for the expenses of the medicine of their old and infirm parents and thus they are caught in very bad conditions and the LG administration and the BJP government of the centre is unmoved over the sad plight of these minority community employees.
The withholding of the salaries have added to the agony, mental tension, depression and frustration among them and they are demanding and appealing the LG administration to order immediate release of their pending salaries. It is height of injustice that the package employees had been denied their salaries even on the occasion of the festival of Diwali and this clearly shows how unsympathetic the present BJP government is about the genuine issues and problems of this segment of the Pandit population. It seems that the BJP is only selling and marketing the pain and suffering of the Kashmiri Pandits and it has no empathy and sympathy with the Kashmiri Pandits and its Package employees and are thus taking steps to coerce and force them to resume their duties back in Kashmir.
The LG administration should take a sympathetic and humanitarian view and order the release the pay of the package employees. The UT administration should ask the Secretary General Administration Department-GAD to issue the order of release of the pay dues of the package employees to give some succor to them in their hour of crises and difficulty. As already noted above the package employees are holding shadow posts which are additional posts and so their absence from duties will not in any way hamper the government functioning .
Besides it is proper to mention here that the salary of the package employees is directly debited to security related expenditure and thus the DDO’s have no right to withhold the salaries of these hapless employees .Many of the package employees have put in 12 years of hard and efficient work in Kashmir valley but today they were forced by the prevailing circumstances to abandon their duties and take refuge in Jammu for the safety of their life ,limb and honor all of these are at great and grave risk because of the targeted killings of the minorities and so they should be shifted to Jammu for the time being to give them a breathing space. But as ill luck would have to them, the government seems adamant to send them back to Kashmir for performing their duties. But it is no sane move if the government asks them to resume duties in Kashmir as the ground conditions are unfavourable for them to live and work across Kashmir.
Thus the sanity should prevail upon the LG administration and it should call a spade a spade and not tow the normalcy language of the centre government as it is he who is working and seeing the conditions on the ground. Therefore LG administration should order the release of the pay of the package and reserve category employees without any delay to give some relief to these employees. Besides the LG should appraise the centre government about the threat perception to these employees in Kashmir and request the centre government to consider the relocation/attachment of the package employees to Jammu to save them from tension, mental agony and frustration. The Pandit Package employees have high hopes in the BJP dispensation of the country and they hope that the centre government will take a sympathetic consideration of their plight and order their temporary attachment in RC office Jammu. The BJP government needs to climb down from its ego and show flexibility and direct LG of the UT to order shifting of the package employees to Jammu till the situation becomes normal for their living and performing duties in Kashmir. The government of the centre should not construe the shifting of the package employees to Jammu as a defeat of their normalcy narrative. If the government will not accede their only and genuine demand of relocation , they will be forced to take the extreme step of mass resignation and all of its consequences will be upon the government.

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