PESHAWAR: The Peshawar University Teachers Association (Puta) has announced to move court against the harassment and manhandling of the staff of botanical garden, a research facility of the University of Peshawar at Azakhel, by the administration of Nowshera district.

Puta president Jamil Chitrali and about 25 staffers, including administrative and class-IV employees, held a press conference at Peshawar Press Club on Tuesday against their forced eviction and locking them out of the Azakhel Botanical Garden by the district administration with the use of the police on Monday night and then not allowing them to enter it on Tuesday morning to do their duty.

“The watchmen were evicted from the botanical garden at midnight. Four PhD teachers and 25 staffers who were sitting on the road outside the botanical garden were abused and told to leave the area,” Mr Chitrali said and accused the Nowshera administration of using force against the staff.

The staff and Puta president, who seemed concerned at the action by the Nowshera district administration, said that they would be forced to call on all the public sector universities to close down in protest if the botanical garden was not opened immediately for the staff to continue their work there.

Dr Asad, director of Azakhel Botanical Garden, said that officials of the district administration along with the Elite force forced their entry into the garden and locked the offices. The staff was told to get out of the premises.

Mr Chitrali alleged that Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had first himself tried to take away the land by cancelling the lease because he wanted to hand it over to a private sector university. He said that when the CM was stopped by the court, his brother and nazim of Nowshera district took a severe action by locking the botanical garden and evicting the staff from the premises. He said that researchers, teachers and staffers were forced to sit on the road, but the district police forced them out of there too.

Dr Ghayas Ali also complained of manhandling of the staff by the police and said that locks of all the offices were broken. He said that the staff wanted to go to the office in the morning, but the police and local administration staff did not let them in.

Shaukat Hayat, a watchmen, also narrated how the police and local administration officials forced their entry into the botanical garden and took their weapons and broke the locks.

“We are just security guards and could not fight the Elite force and administration officials. They came and took possession of everything and locked it,” said the watchman of botanical garden.

Despite the decision of the Peshawar High Court and Supreme Court, the UoP staff was not allowed to work in the botanical garden.

The district government had leased out around 689 kanals to UoP for the establishment of biodiversity centre through a lease deed on Dec 16, 2005 for a period of 99 years.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2016