MUZAFFARABAD: Over a dozen schoolteachers and two police personnel were injured on Wednesday after riot police used batons and tear gas shells to disperse a big procession of male tutors, accusing them of violating an “understanding” with the administration.

Around 68 teachers, including some pensioners, had been taken into custody for “rioting in a sensitive area,” Deputy Commissioner Abdul Hameed Kiyani told Dawn.

Speaking at a press conference in the wake of the incident, representatives of All Azad Kashmir Schoolteachers Organisation threatened against launching a “state-wide agitation” if their demand was not met and their detained colleagues were not released by the government within 24 hours.

Earlier in the day, around 2,000 teachers who had arrived from different parts of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) assembled on the premises of a state run school in Upper Chattar Housing Scheme as per their protest programme which they had made public on Dec 23 last year.

They recalled that they had long been calling for implementation of a “commitment” made to them in 2013 by the then Chaudhry Abdul Majeed led PPP government, whereby the post of primary teacher was to be upgraded to BS-14 from BS-7, that of the junior teacher to BS-16 from BS-14 and the senior teacher to BS-17 from BS-16.

“However, the commitment could not be actualised due to traditional step-motherly attitude of the finance department which keeps on repeating its convenient stance of lack of funds when it comes to giving any genuine benefit to low grade employees,” said Ayesha Siddique, one of the representatives in her speech on the occasion.

She claimed that shortly after assuming the office in 2016, Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider had also given “an assurance to teachers to fulfill their demand regarding the up-gradation of pay scales.”

However, she said Mr Haider went back on his commitment “even though lately he showed extra generosity by approving arbitrary and exorbitant increase in the emoluments of senior government servants, including the chief secretary and IGP.”

While on the school premises, organisers gave a deadline of 1:45pm to the authorities to deliver them the notification about acceptance of their demand or else they would head towards the PM office to stage a peaceful sit-in.

Over 30 female teachers were however asked to stay back for fear of clash with the police who had been deployed in huge numbers in the area to meet any eventuality.

When the teachers’ procession had moved hardly 400 yards, heavy police contingents stopped them at a roundabout in Upper Chattar at about 3pm. The defiant participants refused to disperse and within a few moments the police started charging them with batons, maintaining that they were blocking the flow of traffic.

Shortly afterwards tear gas shells were also lobbed by the police.

Even though, the exact figure is not available, witnesses and official sources said over a dozen teachers and two constables had sustained wounds. Police also struck a private TV cameraman covering the clash, triggering protest from the local journalist community.

In a handout, Mr Kiyani defended police action against the teachers saying the “mild lathi charge” was done under his order to disperse demonstrators.

“The office bearers of teachers’ organisation had given an assurance to the administration that they would not enter the area housing civil and assembly secretariats. And in return we had offered them to constitute a representative delegation for a meeting with the concerned authorities. However, nevertheless, a large number of teachers tried to storm into the prohibited area and on being stopped scuffled with the police,” he said.

Contrarily, Malik Habibur Rehman, senior vice president, and other office bearers of the teachers’ body termed police action as “utterly unjustified, unlawful and unethical.”

“We strongly condemn this brutality which was meted out to us when we were completely peaceful. The administration has given a very bad message to 40,000 families of teachers,” they said at the press conference.

They warned against launching an agitation from every nook and cranny of AJK “until the government realised the unjust attitude of official machinery and compensated the teachers’ fraternity”.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2021