KARAK: A schoolteacher was on Tuesday shot dead over barring students from bringing slingshots to school.

Sources said that the attackers escaped the area after the incident. The victim Mohammad Arif was teaching in government primary school in Koh-i-Maidan area bordering Punjab.

The sources claimed that the teacher had snatched slingshots from the students and forbidden them not to bring them to school in future. On Tuesday morning, when the teacher snatched the slingshots from students, they went straight to their homes and complained to parents about the teacher.

The sources claimed that after sometime a few people came to the school and opened fire on the teacher, killing him on the spot.

The relatives of the slain teacher registered FIR against Gul Dad and two other persons in Shah Saleem police station.

Meanwhile, the All Pakistan Teachers Association, district chapter, blocked the Amberi Kalay-Darratang road for over an hour to demand arrest of the teacher’s killers.

The association’s district president Javed Iqbal Khattak set a three-day deadline for the authorities to arrest the killers or they would spread the protest to the entire district.

The protesters demanded that security should be provided to teachers during duty hours as they were the builders of the nation.

Mr Khattak told reporters that the incident had created unrest among the teachers’ community.

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2014