Sambalpur: Police resorted to mild lathi-charge on agitating members of the Orissa Ambulance Service Employees’ Union (OASEU) Monday.
About 300 members OASEU from 28 districts of the state gathered in front of the office of the Revenue Divisional Commissioner (RDC) and staged a sit-in. The police reacted after the agitators started shouting provocative slogans and became intolerable to the police. The protesters fled the scene after the police action.
It all started when members of the union launched a fresh agitation Monday after police picked up their 358 colleagues in the midnight of Thursday (January 4) under the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA).
The agitators first shouted for their ‘court arrest’ then resorted to sloganeering against the state government and the police for their alleged atrocities on their fellow members. They also demanded either unconditional release of detained union members or arrest of the agitators.
Additional superintendent of police (ASP) Amarendra Rana said the agitators have every right to stage an agitation in a peaceful manner but they will be arrested if they violate the law.
He said the agitators’ demand for courting arrest is futile, as the police have been posted to carry out their law and order duty.
Addressing a press conference prior to the agitation, OASEU leaders Rajesh Rath, Bibeka Naik, Jyotirmay Pradhan and others said they are subject to sheer exploitation by their employer Zigitsa Healthcare Limited (ZHL), an outsourcing agency, that provides drivers for ‘108’ ambulance services to the state government.
They said their demand for justice went unheard. Earlier, their colleagues had staged a peaceful agitation for 16 days before the office of the RDC pressing for their 22-point charter of demands. But that was ineffective.
The leaders said, on the other hand, police detained all the 358 agitating members of their union at the midnight of January 4th on the instruction of the state government by imposing ESMA. The arrested members are still in judicial custody as none of them agreed to come out on bail.
The agitation was launched December 20. In the earlier phase, the agitators’ sole demand was the state government should employ them directly instead of engaging them through an outsourcing agency, as they are subjected to sheer exploitation by their present employer. PNN