HYDERABAD, Feb 1 Activists of the All Sindh People's Paramedical Staff Welfare Association, Isra University hospital chapter, observed a token hunger strike in front of the press club on Sunday in protest against sacking of employees.

The office-bearers of the association, Asghar Ali, Ayaz Ali, and Farooq Ahmed, said that the hospital management had terminated services of over one dozen university employees without any reason.

They urged the relevant authorities to reinstate sacked employees and to fix minimum monthly wages at Rs6,000 as had been announced by the government.

They complained that the employees were being forced to work for 12 hours instead of eight hours. They demanded that the working hours should be reduced and services of temporary employees should be confirmed.

EDUCATION DEPT The Sindh Employees Alliance has criticised the education department officials for taking no steps to solve problems of teachers and employees of the department.

A meeting of the administrative committee of the alliance was held here on Sunday and presided over by Mohammad Rafique Jarwar.

It said that the officials appointed by Arbab Rahim were not interested in solving problems of teachers and employees of the department.

It decided to hold a meeting on Feb 18 to chalk out future course of action if problems of 175,000 teachers and employees were not solved.

It adopted several resolutions, demanding removal of ban on the unions of teachers and employees, uniformity of salary and allowances of teachers of all the provinces and elimination of shortage of teachers in educational institutes of Sindh.