FAISALABAD: ‘Protest syndrome’ hit the city on Thursday as attendants of patients, traders, farmers and lecturers staged demonstrations on three thoroughfares, causing a great deal of inconvenience to commuters.

Attendants of seven patients admitted to district headquarters hospital brought them [patients] on the road near Railway Station Chowk on stretchers in protest against what they alleged unjustified discharge from the infirmary. As a result of the protest, traffic remained stuck from Railway Station Chowk to the Chenab Club Chowk for about half an hour.

Reports said seven injured people admitted to the hospital were discharged after treatment. Their attendants alleged that the patients were not provided with proper treatment. They chanted slogans against the doctors who claimed that the patients were discharged after they grew stable. The protesters dispersed after police assured them of proper treatment.

In the second protest, traders of Mansoorabad gathered on Jhumra Road and threw traffic out of gear for more than one hour chanting slogans against the corporation officials.

Talking to reporters, they alleged that the officials were demanding bribe in the name of operation against encroachments.

They said the business activities were already low due to the political situation of the country and the corporation employees were adding to their woes.

They demanded that the district administration look into the matter. The traders ended the protest after assurance by the government officials that action would be taken against the employees allegedly involved in receiving bribe.

In the third incident, dozens of sugarcane farmers from different villages of Chak Jhumra riding tractor-trolleys blocked traffic at the Zila Council Chowk. They were protesting against the district administration and the sugar mills owners for not paying them fixed price of Rs180 per 40 kilo.

Carrying banners, wooden sticks and the sugarcane, the protesters chanted slogans against the millers and the government officials and alleged that both were exploiting farmers’ rights.

The fourth protest was launched by the Faisalabad Professors and Lecturers Association, blocking traffic outside the press club.

The protesters told the media that the government had been assigning ‘unjustified’ duties to teachers and seemed reluctant to accept their demands for one-step upgrade and time scale.

They threatened to go for boycott of the classes and would expand the scope of their protest if the government didn’t accept their demands immediately.

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2017