Captain demands release of nurses in Patiala, Nabha jails

Wednesday, 23/11/2016

http://epaper.dailypostindia.com/Details.aspx?id=168586&boxid=58659&uid=&dat=2016-11-23

Patiala : Lambasting the Badal-instigated police high-handedness against the contractual agitating nurses, Punjab Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh has demanded the immediate release from jail, and withdrawal of the cases against the 84 nurses who were taken into custody on November 16.

Coming down heavily on the inhumane and insensitive crackdown by the Badal regime on the protesting nurses from Patiala and Amritsar government hospitals, Captain Amarinder said that the arrest of these nurses amounted to putting salt on their wounds.

Far from addressing their genuine demands, the Badal government unleashed police terror against them by having them arrested and jailed.

Promising to address their demand for regularisation once this party comes to power in Punjab, Captain Amarinder extended full Congress support to the 580 contractual nurses working in the government hospitals of the two districts.

Referring to the shameful arrests, Captain Amarinder lamented that the cops did not even show consideration towards the pregnant nurses among the protestors, nor took cognizance of the fact that many of them had infant children, needing their mothers’ care.

Captain Amarinder said that the nurses, most of whom have been booked under IPC Section 107/51, were obviously agitated over the attempted suicide of four of their colleagues, including Karamjeet Kaur Aulakha, president of Government Nursing and Ancillary Staff Union. Aulakh and other four nurses had jumped into the Bhakra canal on Patiala-Nabha road in protest against the Badal government’s failure to address their long-pending demand. The suicide bid triggered outrage among the other nurses, who attacked and damaged police vehicles in Patiala and Amritsar.

The police seized the opportunity to take 84 of them, including the four who had tried to take their lives, and acting with surprising alacrity, had them thrown into jail, where they continued to languish, said the Punjab Congress president. Though the nurses in Amritsar were subsequently released, those in Patiala, including Karamjeet, are still in custody in Patiala and Nabha jails.

The Congress would bring in a notification to regularise them with an immediate effect on taking over the reins of the state, he assured the nurses, expressing anguish at their plight.