10 more fasting engineers shifted to hospital

By Our Staff Correspondent

GULBARGA, MARCH 25. Ten more unemployed Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe engineers, who were on indefinite hunger strike demanding filling of backlog vacancies in government departments, were on Sunday forcibly shifted to the Government General Hospital.

The police on Saturday forcibly shifted Mr. Chandrakant Methre to the Government Hospital. Those who were shifted to the hospital today include Mr. Robinson S.Myageri, Mr. Devendrakumar B.Kadekere, Mr. Nagaraj S.Bogi, Mr. Vijayakumar V.Chitrakar, Mr. Sadanand B.Hukkekar, Mr. Sanjeevkumar M. Kamble, Mr. Pandurang Malagi, Mr. Kishan Nayak, Mr. Sunil Kumar and Mr. Vijayakumar Telli.

The hunger strike in front of the residence of the Public Works Minister, Mr. Dharam Singh, here by 28 unemployed engineers from Gulbarga, Raichur, Bidar, Mysore, Mandya, Koppal and Bidar districts entered third day today.

Mr. Mallikarjun Madani, President of the Karnataka SC and ST Unemployed Engineers' Union, who is leading the hunger strike, condemned the ``intimidatory'' tactics adopted by the police.

Mr. Madani told The Hindu that the PWD Secretary, Mr. Oudi, spoke to the agitating engineers over telephone twice today and appealed to them to withdraw the agitation.

Criticising Mr. Dharam Singh for not coming to Gulbarga, he said unless the Minister or Mr. Oudi visited them and gave concrete assurances to them, the unemployed engineers would not end their hunger strike.

Meanwhile, efforts by senior Congress leaders, including the DCC President, Mr. Iqbal Ahmed Saradagi, and the Gulbarga Zilla Panchayat President, Mr. Allamprabhu Patil, to persuade the striking engineers to call off their agitation failed.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : Relief likely for farmers in budget
Next     : Cricket is back, and the crowd too