Teaching assistants disrupt traffic for hours in Peshawar

Regularisation of services and service structure

PESHAWAR: The traffic was disrupted on Tuesday as members of the Teaching Assistants Society blocked the busy Sher Shah Suri Road near the Governor’s House to demand regularisation of services and service structure.

The blockade of the main artillery near the Peshawar Press Club and later the Governor’s House for hours caused extreme inconvenience to motorists and commuters. The people were seen and heard cursing the protesters and the administration for causing them sufferings.

When the busy road remained blocked for traffic, nobody from the administration or police turned up at the spot to ease the situation. Led by chairman of the Teaching Society Nasir Jalil Saadat, the protesters were carrying banners and placards inscribed with slogans against the government and in favour of their demands.

Speaking on the occasion, Nasir Jalil said the government had recruited 850 persons in 2014. He said all the appointments had been made on merit and the government had not evolved any proper mechanism for the regularisation of their services. He claimed that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Higher Education Mushtaq Ghani had announced regularisation of the services of teaching assistants as lecturers in May 2015 but lamented that the pledged was yet to be materialised. The protesters demanded the government to announce a basic service structure for them, regularise their services and entitle them to other fringe benefits.