AROUND 600 healthcare workers, who had been protesting loss of jobs at Bhopal’s Neelam Park for the past three days, were lathicharged and evicted from the venue by police on Thursday.
A total of 6,213 workers were hired by the government on contractual basis for three months as the Covid situation worsened in the state. A number of workers, whose contract ended on November 30, assembled under the Covid-19 Swasthya Sangathan Madhya Pradesh and demanded that they be permanently absorbed in their jobs, stating that there was a shortage of healthcare workers in the state.
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Yogesh Raghuvanshi, state general secretary of the Sangathan, said, “On humanitarian grounds we should be appointed as we were hired against the vacancies.”
On Thursday, when the police urged the demonstrators to vacate the park, they refused and demanded that they be allowed to meet Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. As they persisted with their demands, the police resorted to lathicharge, in which many of the protesters, including two pregnant women, were injured.
DIG Irshad Wali said the workers did not have permission to organise the protest for even a single day.
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According to officials, around 400 workers were detained and FIRs were registered against 66 of them.
Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan.(File). 
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