Siraha, November 18:

Alleging that the government remained indifferent to their six-point charter of demands, agitating civil servants and teachers in Siraha district today decided to shut down all government and non-government offices and educational institutions in the district for 11 days, starting tomorrow.

The decision was taken after a meeting between the district administration and the joint struggle committee of the civil servants and teachers ended inconclusively.

Joint struggle committee president Arun Shah told this daily that they had decided to stage the shutdown from tomorrow. He added, however, the emergency health services and electricity services would not be disrupted.

Organisations affiliated to the civil servants’ and teachers’ unions accused the seven parties of being apathetic towards their demands.

Chief District Officer Bal Krishna Panthi urged the agitators to attend work and assured them that the government had already set up a security ring for them.

The two unions are demanding a guarantee of security for government employees and teachers. They also want slain VDC secretary Ram Hari Pokhrel, nayab subba Prabhu Narayan Yadav and teacher Arun Kumar Shrestha to be declared martyrs

and that the government reimburse abducted employees who pay ransom for their release.

Secretaries of the village development committees present in the meeting also threatened that they would tender their resignation en masse if the demands were not met.

Earlier, the agitating employees and teachers had sent a memorandum to the Prime Minister warning that they would go into aggressive agitation mode if their demands were not met by November 18.