JKNPP holds 'Adhikaar Rally' demanding 'justice for Jammu'

Attacking BJP, J&K National Panthers Party (JKNPP) today accused it of forsaking "nationalistic agenda" and held a rally here demanding "justice for Jammu".
"There is discrimination against Jammu at all fronts. Since BJP came to power in alliance with PDP, it has forsaken its so-called nationalistic agenda and surrendered all issues of Jammu region it once championed," JKNPP Chairman Harsh Dev Singh alleged.
Demanding the quashing of FIR against non-local students of NIT, Singh said that by taking action against students who hoisted the national flag, the BJP-PDP government has "exposed its anti-national stand".
"It is highly shameful and condemnable that the students who hoisted the national flag in NIT campus were beaten to pulp by police, and Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh of BJP justified it by saying it was a mild lathicharge," he alleged.

Raising slogans like 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' and 'Tirangay ka apman nai sahega Hindustan' (India will not tolerate the insult of national flag), JKNPP activists held the rally that started from Panjtirthi and culminated at Gandhi Nagar in Jammu city.
Hitting out at BJP for forging alliance with PDP, Singh said, "BJP should come clean on what concessions its national leaders have offered to PDP for coming together after a stalemate of almost three months."

Anguished over the "deprivation of the Jammu youths" in
selections in government services, Singh made a reference to the recently-published select list of assistant professors and alleged that of the 58 posts in the discipline of commerce, only 13 went to the Jammu region whereas, the rest was given to Kashmir.

He said earlier, select lists also used to mention that of the 34 candidates in history, nine belonged to the Jammu region. Similarly, seven out of 26 in physics, nine out of 27 in psychology as well as in other subjects were given to the region.
Singh also alleged "highly-biased" selections in the Economics and Statistics Directorate, wherein out of the 26 candidates selected for the posts of junior statistical assistants, only one belonged to the Jammu region.
"In the Health and Medical Education department, out of 123 selections of consultants in radiology, medicine, ophthalmology, ENT, orthopaedics, gynaecology, pathology and paediatrics, only 23 belong to the Jammu region," he said.

Singh claimed that the "bias and prejudice" in the selections had not only demoralised the aspiring Jammu youths, but sparked a colossal outrage which needed immediate attention of the government.
Dismayed over the fact that the protesters included even contractual lecturers who set photocopies of their degree certificates ablaze, Singh said the teaching fraternity had been rendering their services with zeal and honesty in schools and colleges on paltry salaries with the hope that they would be regularised to earn like their permanent compeers.