SCPC: IESM Fast for Justice, Tricity

Mohali, October 20 The ex-servicemen from Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula launched a protest against the ‘step-motherly’ treatment meted out to them by the successive governments at the Centre towards their long pending demands, in Mohali on Monday.
Under the banner of the Punjab chapter of the Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement (IESM), around 150 ex-servicemen and four widows from the tricity gathered at YPS Chowk in Phase VIII, where a group of 11 ex-servicemen, headed by Brig (Retd) Harwant Singh, sat on a chain hunger strike from 9 am to 5 pm, said Lt Col (retd) Sadhu Singh Sohi, coordinator of the IESM.

The protesters raised slogans in favour of the three service chiefs and against the ‘indifferent’ policies of the government. The protest, which was the first step under the countrywide mass protest, remained peaceful.

Sohi said that from Tuesday, a group of five ex- servicemen will continue the hunger strike at Gurdwara Amb Sahib Chowk in Phase VIII. The strike will continue till Friday.

“If the Centre fails to fulfill our genuine demands by then, we will join the national protest at New Delhi,” he said. As part of the protest, the ex- servicemen will also observe Diwali on October 28 as ‘black day’, said Sohi. “Similar protests were held in 600 cities across the country, for the first time in the country’s history,” he added.

The IESM coordinator said: “The last three pay commissions have been extremely unfair to us and neglected our interests. With every war victory, we have been harmed and downgraded because none of our representatives were included in the Central Commissions.”

He added that soldiers were still deemed as unskilled workers and a Naib Subedar, who is a Class II officer, gets pension less than a civil peon.
Ex-servicemen protest against ‘govt apathy’