Peshawar: Case registered against protesting schoolteachers

PESHAWAR: A case has been registered schoolteachers who staged a protest demonstration in Peshawar city, demanding upgradation of their pay scales and restoration of allowances, ARY News reported on Friday.

According to details, the city police have registered a case against 213 schoolteachers, protesting under the banner of Primary School Teachers’ Association, with Sharqi Police Station.

The First Information Report (FIR) includes provision of interference in the government, damaging public property and firing and stone pelting on the police administration. The police had rounded up 213 protesting schoolteachers a day earlier.

Thousands of primary schoolteachers from across the province assembled outside the provincial assembly building on Khyber Road and demanded their upgradation from BPS-14, 15, 16 and 17 and increase in allowances.

The protestors said that the provincial government had promised a change but failed to address their problems despite repeated assurances in the past three years.

The police baton-charged protesters and fired tear gas on them to ensure their dispersal. The action injured many teachers, who were shifted to the Lady Reading Hospital, whose doctors provided them with first aid.

The teachers responded to the tear gas shelling by throwing those shells and stones at police. The stones injured six police men and damaged some media vehicles, according to a statement issued by the city police.