Daily Times

KARACHI: As many as 60 teachers protesting outside the Karachi Press Club were released hours after their detention by police on Thursday.

The surroundings of the Karachi Press Club remained a battleground for at least one hour when the teachers attempted to march towards the Bilawal House in Karachi on the eleventh day of their ongoing protest.

The situation turned violent when the protesting teachers were trying to make way toward Bilawal House and the heavy contingent of the police attempted to stop them. The protesting teachers attacked the police while pelting stones while the police started charging them with batons and using tear gas shells.

More contingents of the law enforcers was called at the clash site to disperse the protesters. The road leading toward the press club and the Bilawal House in Karachi was blocked while the hide and seek between the police and the protesting teachers caused of massive traffic jam on various surrounding roads including Dawood Pota Road, MA Jinnah Road, Dr Ziauddin Road, II Chundrigar Road, Club Road, Fawara Chowk, Zaibunnisa Road and Abdullah Haroon Road.

The police, however, was able to stop the protesters from heading towards the Bilawal House and arrested at least ten protesting teachers. Some of the protesting teachers, however, reached MT Khan Road via Burns Road route, from where they had to headed toward Bilawal House, however, the police also dispersed them and detained the teachers while the remaining teachers again reached to the KPC. The detained teachers were later shifted to different police stations of the District South.

“Interestingly, CM Sahib has already fulfilled their demands and ensured them of issuing notification but the protesting teachers insisted of issuance of notification immediately,” said District South police chief SSP Javed Akbar Riaz. “The police tried to convince them but they did not agree and started marching towards the Bilawal House.”

SSP Riaz further said that the police finally started using teargas shells to disperse them and taking them into custody. “We did not even use the batons to disperse them,” SSP claimed. “We just use teargas shells and started making their apprehensions to disperse them.”

In replying to a question, SSP Riaz said that the police is looking for registration of the cases against the protesters. “It has become a routine matter in the Red-Zone,” SSP said. “We did not register the cases in the past but we are now considering to register cases if such protesters happen in the future and this would be good practice to stop such protests.”

Members of the all primary teachers’ association were protesting for permanent orders for those who have qualified test conducted by National Testing Service (NTS) and Sindh University. They also demanded to promote those primary teachers to 16 scale who have completed their 25 years is service. The teachers marched from Bhitt Shah and reached Karachi as few days ago. They protested in front of KPC and marched towards CM house where police tortured them. PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto took notice of it and asked CM to regularize NTS pass teachers. They teachers have been working on contract for last three years. The cabinet meeting was convened on December 30, last year which decided to regularize NTS passed teachers. But teachers union did not call off their strike and continued their demand for Sindh University passed teachers who are still working on contract. They also asked government to fulfill their demand about promotion. Since, government did not give them response, they attempted to go Bilawal House on Thursday and faced police wrath.

Sindh home minister Sohail Anwar Siyal also took notice of the torture on the protesting teachers and appointed a DIG level officer to conduct an inquiry about to ascertain the responsible behind the untoward situation during the teachers protest.

Published in Daily Times, December 5th 2017.