Panthers Party oppose relief for unrest victims’ kin

Tribune News Service

Jammu, January 19

Launching a scathing attack on the decision of the state government to provide ex gratia and government jobs to the kin of stone-throwers who died during the unrest, a large number of activists of the Panthers Party, led by former Education Minister Harsh Dev Singh, today staged a protest demanding revocation of the ‘controversial’ announcement.

The protesters also demanded recruitment of educated youth in government services.

Highly qualified youth, including PhDs, MPhils and double postgraduates besides terminated contractual lecturers, consigned their degrees to flames to express their outrage against the ‘black regime’ of the BJP-PDP alliance.

Harsh Dev said in the ‘black rule’ of the BJP-partnered dispensation in the state, the subversives were glorified where as the educated youth were exploited, suppressed and treated like expendables. He said even the martyrs of the nation were made subjects of contemptuous mockery as the state coffers remained dry for them with hardly any policy of compensation to their bereaved families.

He said the people who had set Kashmir on fire, supported Burhan Wani’s ideology, attacked Army camps, pelted stones on security forces, shouted anti-India slogans and waged a war against the state, deserved to be punished under the law but the state government continued to pursue the policy of use and throw towards the educated youth.