Hundreds of employees of Sindh University, under the aegis of Sindh University Employees Welfare Association (SUEWA), staged a protest demonstration against non-payment of leave encashment before Eidul Fitr on Monday. The protesters staged a sit-in outside administrative block popularly known as AC-II and raised slogans against the vice chancellor and registrar. Addressing on the occasion, SUEWA president Muhammad Ali Ghanghro said that they had been receiving the leave encashment for the last 10 years continuously as per law but the vice chancellor on the indication of prevailing registrar refused to do so, after keeping them in dark for the last 10 days. He said that the varsity syndicate had approved leave encashment for employees and officers and it was also included in the University code book but the University administration was pretending the paucity and availability of funds. “Funds are issue of University administration, not the smaller employees as we are. We will be protesting till the payments as it is our legal right”, he said. The protesters later, disbursed peacefully after recording their effective protest. On the other hand, the president of Sindh University Officer’s Welfare Association (SUOWA) Engr. Sajjad Shah and general secretary Manzoor Ali Panhwar expressed complete solidarity with the employees and called on the university administration to immediately disburse leave encashment to all the officers and employees as per decision given by the syndicate. When contacted, the director finance of SU Zainul Abadeen Shah told that if the vice chancellor allowed leave encashment for officers and employees, everything could be done. He said though there was funding issue at the university, yet utilizing different sources, the employees and officers could be accommodated with the leave encashment as they had been getting the same since years. They said that the leave encashment was the right of officers and employees which they will be getting at any cost. They warned the Sindh University administration of using all the options including launching a protest movement, if the vice chancellor turned a deaf ear to their legal and fair demand. Similarly, the employees association of Mehran University of Engineering & Technology (MUET) also announced to stage protest sit-in in front of VC office today (Tuesday) for the payment of leave encashment to the members of Mehran University Employees Welfare Association (MUEWA).