UoP employees end protest after assurance by governor

PESHAWAR: The 43-day long strike and boycott of academic and managerial activities at the University of Peshawar (UoP) by the teachers and other employees came to an end on Tuesday after Governor Ghulam Ali assured to resolve all the genuine issues of the protesting employees.

The Joint Action Committee (JAC) of protesting employees announced an end to the prolonged strike immediately after a meeting at the Governor’s House. The meeting was attended by the chancellor, chief secretary and a number of secretaries of various departments.

The JAC was represented by Dr. Fazli Nasir, Dr Zakirullah Jan, Dr Shuja Ahmad, Dr Muhammad Uzair, Dr Sajjad Ahmad Jan, Abdul Malik, Qari Rafiullah, Imtiaz Khan, Imdad Khan, Munir Ahmad and Ishtiaq.

The university employees announced to resume the teaching-learning process and normal official work. The teachers expressed the commitment to compensate the students for learning loss by teaching them for extra hours.

The JAC announced the proceedings and outcome of the meeting at the sit-in and sought the endorsement of the entire community to call off the strike and the final announcement was made at the protest camp.

The JAC thanked the governor, who is also the chancellor, chief secretary, the mayor Peshawar and the members of the official committee for taking interest in resolving the issues of the protesting employees after which the strike was called off.

It was decided to convene emergency meetings of the Syndicate and Senate of the university. The representatives of the JAC also thanked the entire teaching community, Class III, Class- IV Employees Associations and the sanitation staff for their commitment, devotion and constant support.

The official committee comprised secretary administration, former commissioner Peshawar, Riaz Mehsud, secretary Higher Education Department, Dr Anila Mehfooz Durrani, and others.

The protest campaign had been launched in the first week of March after the killing of security advisor Saqlain Bangash by a private security guard. The teaching and non-teaching staff were already not comfortable with the policies and actions of Vice-Chancellor Dr Idrees. During the protest drive, the teachers issued a white paper on the alleged corruption and irregularities of the vice-chancellor.

The protesting employees had initially made just four demands including the removal of vice-chancellor, judicial probe into the killing of Saqlain Bangash, psychological examination of the security staff and end to adhoc policies in the university.

Later more demands were added to the list. The additional demands included raise in salaries as per the announcements made by the government from time to time with retrospective effect, issuance of no-objection certificates to the teachers for higher studies abroad and within the country, advertisement of vacant positions and so on.

Several efforts were made during the one-and-half-month of the strike to bring the two sides to a minimum common agenda and resolve the situation. But both sides were not ready to leave their static positions.

The students, being the worst affectees of the situation, moved court to save their time. The court had fixed the next hearing of the case for today (Wednesday). But before the hearing the strike was called off and the duties were resumed.

However, the university will close again from tomorrow (Thursday) on account of the Eid holidays. Therefore, formal studies and other activities in the university would resume from April 26 after Eid.

Meanwhile, Islami Jamiat Talaba demanded the university administration to refund fees to the students and arrange extra classes for them so that they could be compensated for the learning loss.