Teachers baton-charged, detained for protesting in Red Zone

Karachi
The city’s red zone witnessed sheer mayhem on Wednesday when a rally of protesting teachers from all over Sindh was brutally suppressed by anti-riot police as they marched toward the Chief Minister and Governor Houses.
Following the police action, the Sindh Teachers’ Alliance (STA) staged a sit-in near the CM House to condemn the law enforcers’ high-handedness.
Later in the night, after negotiations with provincial officials, the STA announced they would wrap up the protest on condition that the detained teachers were released.
A delegation of the association would meet with the additional secretary education at the Sindh secretariat on Thursday (today) to discuss their issues.
Earlier, more than 25 protesting teachers were also held for some time at nearby police stations as their fellows also received injuries during the violence.
The police used water cannon, tear gas and batons to disperse the protesters trying to march toward the red zone due to which the surrounding area turned into a virtual battle zone.
Intermittently, the teachers were thrown into police vans and sent to be kept at nearby police stations. Most of the detained teachers were released later in the day but a few were still in the custody of the police till 10pm.
However, despite the police action, a large number of teachers still stayed on at the intersection of Club Road and Dr Ziauddin Road. The road leading to the Chief Minister’s House was blocked by containers on account of which regular commuters suffered a great deal while going to and returning from work. This is also why massive traffic jams were reported in the areas around Fowara Chowk, Shaheen Complex and PIDC intersections.
The teachers had come to Karachi from different areas of the province to record their protest against the education secretary Dr Fazlullah Pechuho, whom they described as a bully and an uncooperative man. The teachers began gathering outside the Karachi Press Club at around 10am and then went on to stage a demonstration outside the Sindh Secretariat. In the afternoon they decided to move towards the Chief Minister’s House but they were met with brute force of water cannons and baton charge by the anti-riot police when they reached the Fowara Chowk.
The anti-riot police warmed up with firing tear-gas shells and baton-charge upon the teachers before they began rounding them up and whisking them away to police stations. The teachers made one more attempt to march ahead but they couldn’t pass through the anti-riot police personnel.
The teachers then dispersed for the time being into smaller groups and tried to sneak their way in towards the Chief Minister’s House. However, the roads leading to it were already sealed with containers so they made do with staging another sit-in near the PIDC.
Till Wednesday evening, teachers were still staging a demonstration between the road which has two four-star hotels on either side.
The convener of Sindh Teachers’ Alliance, Intizar Hussain, told The News that a protocol officer of the Chief Minister’s House had visited the protestors and had asked them to end the protest but the teachers had refused and had demanded removal of the education secretary.
Hussain said the protest leaders offered for a delegation to visit the CM House to apprise the chief minister or the Sindh chief secretary Muhammad Siddiq Memon of their problems. However, he lamented, the chief minister is in Dubai.
Hussain said teachers were ready to negotiate with government, but only if education minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro was a part of the process.
Hussain said a committee had been formed on the directives of the chief minister to discuss and resolve the issues of teachers.
“Additional commissioner of South district and additional secretary education were part of the committee,” he said. “But we will not talk to them. We will only talk to the officials we have nominated.”
He claimed that the sit-in would continue till the teachers’ demands were met. According to him, at least 200 teachers were detained and over a 100 were injured.
The Sindh Teachers’ Alliance is a platform comprising primary, junior and higher school teachers. They said a large number of teachers were hired after passing the National Testing Service examination from Sindh University around eight to nine months ago but the education department had not issued salaries since then.
Another group of teachers claimed they had been waiting for their due promotions for the past decade. Yet another group of teachers said they had been promoted to BPS-17 and BPS-18, then were demoted for no apparent reason.
The protesters also demanded restoration of the son quota in education department. Another leader of the Sindh Teachers’ Alliance, Sikandar Jatoi, said the government had introduced biometric verification system and due to it those who could not appear for their registration had not received their salary.
Commenting on the protest and demands of teachers, education secretary Dr Fazlullah Pechuho said the protesting teachers had been absent from work for a long period of time and this was why their salaries had been stopped.
He said those who claimed to be primary teachers could not even spell the word primary. However, he said, their case would be revisited when they resumed work.
Meanwhile, Sindh education minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro in a statement issued after the baton-charge said the government did not believe in subjecting teachers to violence.
He assured that the genuine problems of teachers would be resolved by negotiation. However, he said the teachers had violated the SOPs of the red zone and they should have avoided staging a protest there. He said he had issued orders to release all the detained teachers but the matters pertaining to issuance of salaries will be determined after biometric verification.