PESHAWAR: The employees of 26 government departments in a joint move have decided to boycott their duties on Oct 13, hold a rally at Jinnah Park, Peshawar, and then march to the Governor`s House to record their protest against the sacking of employees from different departments.

Speaking at a press conference at Peshawar Press Club on Thursday, All Pakistan Government Employees Coordination Council`s provincial chairman Muzzamil Tarnabi, presi-dent Aslam Khan and general secretary Gohar Taj highlighted some of their demands and problems and asked the government to solve them till Oct 12 otherwise they would start protest demonstrations from Oct 13.

They said that at least 70 employees of Nadra, including their central president Saleem Sherpao, had been sacked for the only reason that they were demanding service structure.

They asked the government to avoid privatisation of different national level departments like Wapda, Pakistan Railways, etc because the workers would not allow it at any cost. The government, they alleged, wanted to privatise the departments at throwaway prices to its own people. They said that the workers were fully united to oppose any such plan. They also opposed the arrest of employees of various departments in the province in the name ofaccountability and demanded that the process should be stopped immediately. `We will not allow anyone to harass our colleagues under false charges of corruption,` they said.

The employees of all the four major hospitals of Peshawar, they said, should be given incentives like other government servants. They asked the government to give possession of plots at Regi Lalma Township to the relevant workers as the process was very slow. They said that the old policy for allotment of plots should be restored.

They also demanded protection to the employees and recruitment of the relatives of the deceased and retired workers without any delay. The government employees` leaders said that they had presented the charter of demands to the federal and provincial governments and set the deadline of Oct 12 for resolution of their problems.