MULTAN, Jan 24: Police rounded up scores of teachers here on Tuesday to stop them from assembling outside the office of the executive district officer (education) to hold a protest rally. A heavy police contingent had been cordoning off the EDO office since morning. The police picked up around 50 teachers belonging to various parts of the province when they turned up to the venue for their scheduled rally and, later, bundled them into the police vans.

The teachers taken into custody were later lodged in the lock-ups of the Gulgasht and Kotwali police stations. They were reportedly set free in the evening.

According to the Gulgasht police SHO, inspector Chaudhry Muhammad Maqbool, no case was registered against the protesters for violation of section 144 CrPC.

Various organizations working for the rights of the schoolteachers in the province had announced that a peaceful rally would be organized in the lawns of the office of Multan EDO education as the district administration had banned rallies on the school premises.

The leadership of Punjab Teachers Union, Senior Staff Association, Punjab SES Teachers Association and Muslim Teachers Federation was expected to address the rally to press the government to accept their demands.

Salient points of their demands are that the schools should be governed by the provincial government rather than the district government, contract system of appointments be abolished and services of all the contract teachers be regularized and promotions in next grades be given timely.

A spokesman of the protesting teachers, Rana Muhammad Aslam Saghar, however, claimed that the rally was organized after change of the venue outside the office of district education officer (schools). He said teachers from all over the province would now hold a protest procession in Lahore on Jan 31.

The procession would march from Nasir Bagh to the Chief Minister House.