The egg-pelting incident took place on The Mall in front of the Punjab Assembly, which is sitting on the bill meant for revision of pay for the protesters for years, while The Mall and Hall Road traders took the law in their hands to implement the Lahore High Court decision imposing a ban on holding protest rallies on the road of bustling business centres.
The LHC decision was in fact passed after the Punjab government, in violation of its own decision, held a protest rally against the federal government of the Pakistan People’s Party about a month ago from Nasir Bagh, the starting point of The Mall.
It was the same road from where the traders bodies of The Mall, Hall Road and adjacent roads brought out rallies to join the main rally at Nasir Bagh and no one including the commuters on these roads protested against them since they were already off the roads leading to Nasir Bagh knowing well that they would find no way to go if they got stuck in the procession.
According to some sources in The Mall and Hall Road Traders’ Association, the decision to pelt the protesting nurses with rotten eggs had in fact been taken after the leadership disapproved various other suggestions including beating the protesters with batons and throwing water with the help of fire brigade tankers.
Ironically, no action has so far been taken against the traders association and their activists who in their quest to implement the LHC order of a ban on protest rallies on The Mall, violated the law for the sake of their business against the hapless nurses who chose to come on streets as a last resort to secure a respectable living for them and their families.
If the nurses have pelted stones on the traders and their shops, the law would have swiftly come into action, sending many of the protesters behind the bars.
There is a complete silence over the incident as nothing has happened since the victims in the case are hapless nurses. The custodian of ‘Takht-e-Lahore’ (Rulers of Punjab) has yet to issue a condemnation statement while the superior judiciary, famous for taking suo motu notice on as small a case as of Attiqa Odho’s alleged possession of bottles of liquor, has yet to take note of the matter which finds a space in headlines of all news channels and newspapers.
The hapless nurses of the province seek a revision in the pay structure for a long time and have failed to find their demands registered with the custodian of Takht-e-Lahore, Khadam-e-Aala Shahbaz Sharif, as he likes to be called instead of the chief minister.
Soon after becoming the custodian of Takht-e-Lahore for the second time, he showered the police force of the province with his blessings like a king and almost doubled their salaries seeing them as the real defenders of his rule. The aim was also to change the ‘Thana Culture’ but it remained a lip service as men in uniform despite being respected at the highest failed to change their habits and the people of the province have yet to see them coming up to their motto of serving the masses by shunning the century-old habit of acting on the behest of the powerful, rich and influential.
The nurses did saw the wastage of billions of rupees in the name of cheap bread (Sasti Roti Scheme) for masses and the Takht-e-Lahore securing political mileage aimed at nullifying the federal government’s decision enhancing the support prices for wheat.
The nurses watched quietly when their doctor colleagues snatched a pay raise by launching a successful movement across the province and by bringing the Takht-e-Lahore to its knees with the help of their aggressive struggle.
Needless to mention here that the Takht-e-Lahore’s tireless campaign against dengue fever, which is yet to die down, was completely fought by nurses by sacrificing their lives.
The protesting nurses are justified to question who will nurse them and fight for them when they need support and favour not only for a raise in their salaries but also to exercise their right to protest.
