Primary school’s sealing triggers protest in Nowshera

NOWSHERA: The sealing of a primary school by the Cantonment Board continued to trigger protest on the second consecutive day here on Saturday.

The Cantonment Board Nowshera sealed the Government Primary School No-I on the Cavalry Road opposite the Bus Stand in the Cantonment area on Thursday night.

The students and teachers held their morning assembly on the road on Friday when they found the Cantonment Board employees outside the sealed school.

Head teacher of the school and provincial president of the nationalist Malgari Ustazan organisation, Islamuddin Batakzai, termed the action taken by the Cantonment Board an act of encroachment.

The teacher said the school was established in 1929 by a philanthropist Ram Chand and was handed over to the Education Department after the creation of Pakistan in 1947.  He said the closure of the school was also a contempt of court as the case was pending in the Peshawar High Court.

Islamuddin Batakzai said that educational activities would continue on the road till the school is reclaimed from the Cantonment Board. “The Cantonment Board would be responsible in case the sealing of the school caused a security situation,” he cautioned.

The teachers and students attended classes on Saturday as the protest entered into the second day. They staged a sit-in as well to express anger at forcible closure of the school.

The teachers said 250 children were enrolled on the school. They recalled that the Auqaf Department auctioned the school building which was challenged by the school administration. The teacher said they moved the Peshawar High Court which placed the school building back under the control of the Education Department.

The teachers of the school urged Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Army chief General Raheel Sharif and chief justice of the Peshawar High Court to take notice of the “occupation” of the school building.

The protesting teachers said they would unveil a new phase of protest on Monday if the school was not unsealed forthwith.

An official of the Evacuee Trust Property Board, Malik Asif, said that the school building and its land was the property of the federal government and the Peshawar High Court would decide its future.

Spokesperson for the Cantonment Board Nowshera, Muhammad Salim told reporters that a meeting chaired by Station Commander Brig Wasim Anjum closed the school because the building was dilapidated. He added that the meeting also decided that the Cantonment Board would become a party to the case and nobody would be allowed to enter the school till the court verdict.