Bihar policemen's stir deferred till November 30

The proposed mass leave by nearly 70,000 policemen in Bihar was on Wednesday deferred till November 30, following an assurance by Director General of Police Abhayanand that their demands would be looked into, an office-bearer of the Bihar Policemen's Association said.

"We have deferred our decision to go on mass casual leave for five days from midnight till November 30 next after the DGP met our delegation and sought time to consider our demands," said BPA president Jitendra Narayan Singh.

"Abhayanand also communicated Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's message to us that the state government required time to consider the policemen's demands," he said.

Earlier, the Bihar Policemen's Association had threatened to go on mass leave to protest the apathy of the state government, which had "ignored" their demands so far.

The demands include grade pay of Rs 2,000 at par with other states, appointment of a havaldar over four constables and an assistant sub-inspector over 12 constables.

In the first phase of protests on September 10, the constables had worn black badges on duty. Then they had staged a sit-in during duty hours on September 18, followed by two mass hunger strikes during September 26-28 and October 3-5.

Additional inputs from PTI