PESHAWAR
Police in the provincial capital on Thursday resorted to tear gas shelling, baton charge and water cannons to stop primary schools teachers from moving toward Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly building to lodge their protest.
The primary schools teachers from across the province under the banner of All Primary Teachers Association (APTA) were demanding of the provincial government to upgrade the basic scale of primary school teachers.
Addressing the charged protesters, the APTA president Azizullah Khan criticised the provincial government for making lame excuses to upgrade the basic scale of primary school teachers in the province.
He said that the association has held several meetings with the elementary and secondary education department high ups but no positive response came out, adding that the provincial government has turned deaf ears towards their rightful l demands.
The education department has deprived the teachers of primary schools of KP from further promotion, adding that the government has allowed to induct teachers for middle and high schools in scale 15 and 15 respectively but is unable to give the rights of promotion and scale up gradation to teachers of the primary classes.
The protestors kept the main Khyber road for traffic for several hours and traffic outside the provincial assembly remained jammed for many hours.
Azizullah told reports that police have injured a number of protesters after they opened shelling tear gas, adding that all primary schools in the province would remain closed on Friday.
Police told reporters that they took action after talks held between the teachers and government officials failed. They added that the protesters were bent upon holding a rally in areas which were not allowed for demonstrations and rallies.
Around 500 teachers gathered outside the KP Assembly building in the morning for a protest where office-bearers of APTA delivered speeches seeking the fulfillment of their demands.
The provincial government has deployed police outside the assembly main entrance and both sides of the Khyber road. The police initially made several attempts to disperse the protesters and opened the road for traffic but failed.
However, as the protesters tried to move ahead towards the prohibited areas, police used tear gas shelling, water cannons and resorted to baton charge outside the KP Assembly building.
