Health workers try to self-immolate en masse

The contractual employees of National Programme for Family Planning and Primary Health Care, who are on hunger strike for last nine days, tried 'en mass self-immolation' against non-regularisation of their services.
The 40 employees of the national programme who have been observing hunger strike for over a week, tried to commit a 'mass suicide' in front of National Press Club here on Wednesday. Their attempt was foiled by police.
But one worker driver Barkat Golu set himself on fire. The police officials extinguished the fire and shifted Barkat to hospital. Nearly 400 police personnel were deployed to avert any untoward incident. Sadaf, woman SHO of the concerned police station said, "The protesters abused cops when they tried to stop them....we had instructions to stop them as suicide is a crime."
Earlier, the representatives of All Pakistan Lady Health Workers Welfare Association (APLHWWA) at a press conference had given 2-day ultimatum to the government on Monday to regularise them or else they would commit 'mass suicide.'
Bushra Arain, Central Chairperson of the APLHWWA, said LHWs from across the country are presently staging a hunger strike near the National Press Club. The protesters said that there are many LHWs who are on roads with their children as their landlords have thrown them out for non-payment of rent.
She said Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry had also taken notice of this issue on July 30, 2010 and directed the federal government on September 7 in the same year to fix the salary of all the staff members up to Rs7000 and set scales according to their duties. Though, the government increased their salaries according to the apex court order, the regularisation issue is still pending.
It is astonishing that Rukhsana Anwar, Lady Health Supervisor, dissociated herself from the on-going hunger strike, saying that a few employees have been protesting due to a backing of an NGO despite that the government is working to regularise them. And the case is also in the court in this regard.