KOHAT: The district administration registered FIRs against nine female and three male teachers for refusing to perform polio vaccination duty here on Thursday.

The cases were registered in the cantonment police station following a complaint by Dr Sadiq Khan. The teachers were serving at different schools of Kohat, including government girls middle school Banda Parachgan and government girls primary schools at Banda Pehalwan, Garhi Risaldar, Mohammadzai and others besides some boys schools.

All Pakistan Teachers Association’s Kohat district president Ghulam Rabbani in a statement criticised the action, saying it was tantamount to harassment of teachers. He said that the primary job of the teachers was to teach the children and the action against them regarding any other duty would be unjustified. However, he said that the teachers were not provided necessary security during the anti-polio campaign, which was the basic reason why they were refusing to go for vaccination duty.

Mr Rabbani said that examinations of class 5th were under way and teachers would then prepare results of the final examinations.

Teachers’ body condemns action

He said that punishing the teachers was beyond comprehension.

The ATA strongly condemned the deduction of the teachers’ salaries and suggested that the government should involve employees of other government departments in the anti-polio drive. It said that teaching was a noble profession, which demanded the teachers to pay full attention to preparing the students of neglected government schools in this competitive environment where private institutions had a permanent edge over them.

PRINCIPALS BOOKED: Eighty principals and owners of private and government schools were booked on Thursday for constantly ignoring the security warnings issued by the government.

The district police officer said that the police had issued several warnings to the heads of the educational institutions located in sensitive areas in the city and its outskirts to improve existing faulty security measures, but they constantly ignored them.

So, the officials of seven police stations registered cases against 80 principals and owners and warned the remaining institutions to take necessary safety measures. Those who were booked included principals Zahid Mahmood, Nisar Ahmed, Alam Zeb, Imtiaz Alam, Mohammad Abid, Nawabzada Khattak, Hamid Akbar, Fazalur Rehman, Mohammad Yousuf, Ghufranuddin, Abdul Hameed, Habibullah, Asmat Shah, Mohammad Rafique, Shahid Khan, Mian Badshah, Malik Rab Nawaz, Amanullah, Gulistan Khan, Jamshed Khan, Shah Faisal, Ahmed Nawaz, Ayaz Mehmood, Abdur Rauf, Sawab Gul, Bashir Ahmed,Abdul Samad, Zubair, Nasir Saleem, Ahmed Gul, Farooq, Haseeb Noor, Mohammad Latif, Ali Marjan, Sabit Ali, Sibte  Hasan, Shahid Malook, Sabeel Khan, Jabir Shah, Yaseen Akbar, Mairaj Hussain, Mst Farhat Jahan, Mst Farzana Jabin, Aamir, Munir Khan, Iqbal Khan, Jawad Khan, Imtiaz, Abdur Razzaq and others.

ARMS SEIZED: The police foiled an attempt of smuggling of arms from Darra Adamkhel tribal area to Punjab on Thursday.

They stopped a suspicious car in Lachi on the Indus Highway and on search recovered a large number of arms and arrested one Inamullah, a resident of Naurang town of Lakki Marwat.

The seizure included six machine guns, three repeaters of 12-bore, eight pistols and hundreds of cartridges.

**Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play