Kashmir employees suspend strike

Jammu, March 13: Striking government employees in Jammu and Kashmir have suspended their ongoing strike as their leaders have agreed to sit across the table to resolve the issue of payment of arrears due to them under the Sixth Pay Commission, an employees' leader said Saturday.

"We have decided to suspend our strike until the 19th of this month. We would talk to the government and hear what it has to offer," Abdul Qayoom Wani, president of the Employees Joint Action Committee, told a rally of striking employees.

He said that the government has invited them for talks.

"Our colleagues from the valley would be joining us on Monday (March 15). We will chalk out a joint strategy before entering the dialogue," he added.

The government sent feelers to the striking employees Saturday, asking them to call off the strike.

"Strikes would not yield anything except hardships to the people," Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather, who will lead the discussions from the government's side, said in his communication to the striking employees.

On Friday, Rather had said that "both, the government and the employees are accountable to the masses, and we should live up to our obligations."

The employees were on strike for the past five days. They had threatened to go on an indefinite strike after the finance minister in his budget speech had declared that "the state did not have resources to meet the demand of the striking employees."