The Hindu : National : Banihal continues to be tense

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 13, 2004

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National

Banihal continues to be tense

By Our Staff Reporter

BANIHAL (DODA), SEPT. 12. Banihal town on the Jammu-Srinagar National highway 1A, where one person was killed in police firing on striking workers of a railway line on Friday, remained tense today.

Workers involved in the construction of the prestigious Udhampur-Baramulla railway line to link the Valley with the rest of the country had blocked the highway yesterday to protest the firing. Police fired tear-gas shells to disperse the crowd after attempts by the State administration to prevail upon them to lift the blockade failed.

Security in and around the town was tight today. Police patrolled the town to pre-empt a possible attempt by the workers to block the crucial highway again. Senior police officers, including the DIG (Udhampur-Doda), Satvir Gupta, and district officials were camping in the town.

The resentment among the workers had been brewing for the last several months. The construction work had been sub-let to various companies at different places. A 22 km tract that passes through Banihal up to the Khari area was allotted to the Hindustan Construction Company (HCC). For some time now, the workers have been agitating for an increase in salary for unskilled labour. The workers said that they were paid only Rs.60 a day against the Rs.100 they were entitled to under the rules. They were also demanding a risk insurance for working in militancy-infested areas and difficult hilly terrain. A couple of workers in the hilly terrain were injured some months ago.

The agitation against the management turned against the local administration recently after the workers, most of them locals, alleged that they were not duly compensated for the land acquired for the construction of the railway line. People across the Jawahar Tunnel in Qazikund area of Anantnag district were paid more, they said. Even the norms for measuring the lands were blatantly discriminatory, they alleged.

It is still not clear what sparked the incident on Friday that culminated in the police firing. ``The trouble started when workers intercepted two engineers of the Hindustan Construction Company returning from work and allegedly misbehaved with them,'' the SHO, Banihal, Wazir Mohammad, said. ``The engineers filed a complaint against the workers. When senior police officials visited the spot, they were pelted with stones by the workers.''

Senior police and State administration officials were injured in the incident. Police were forced to open fire when anti-national elements joined the workers, the SHO said.

The workers, however, say the police acted irresponsibly. They allege that without trying to talk to the workers first, police fired hundreds of rounds to disperse the crowd.

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