MANSEHRA: Over 1,100 teachers on Thursday stormed the offices of the district education officer in Kohistan and threatened to torch the building if the notices issued to them by the education department over absenteeism were not withdrawn.

The protesters besieged the offices for quite some time and some of them even went to the rooftop shouting slogans against the education department.

However, members of the staff, including DEO Riasat Khan, managed to leave the premises.

The provincial government’s Independent Monitoring Unit had served notices on 1,150 teachers of Kohistan for absenting themselves from duty for many years.

The mob didn’t damage furniture or record in the building.

Disperse after dept promises no action against those doing duty regularly

However, work at the EDO offices remained suspended until 2pm when the administration called in members of a local jirga to defuse tensions.

The jirga members spoke to leaders of protesters and asked them not to take the law into their own hands.

Leaders of the protesters later held talks with DEO and SDO Tanveer Ahmad.

During talks, Riasat said the IMU had issued notices to absentee teachers as part of efforts to improve standards of education in the province and therefore, the teaching community shouldn’t oppose the move.

He said the teachers doing duty regularly and diligently shouldn’t be worried.

The DEO, however, said absentee teachers would face action, which could be termination from service.

Afterwards, the mob dispersed peacefully.

PATWARI SACKED: A patwari lost job and another was arrested in Mansehra over corruption.

Local deputy commissioner Ikramullah Khan terminated the services of patwari Ghulam Raza after an inquiry found him to be involved in the fraudulent transfer of a woman’s land.

Qazi Mohtasim Iftikhar had contacted the deputy commissioner to demand action against patwari Ghulam Raza over the alleged illegal transfer of the land of his mother, Subiha Iftikhar, to a local resident.

The deputy commissioner formed an inquiry team, which found that the patwari had tempered with the land record to benefit the buyer, who paid him Rs2 million for it.

Also, the anti-corruption establishment arrested patwari Mohammad Shaukat and assistant Mohammad Zaheer and two people over land fraud.

ACE circle in charge Mohammad Sohail told reporters that the two revenue officials got vribe from Zakir Hussain and Mohammad Shabbir to temper with record for the transfer of barren land in Barari area.

He said three suspects had been arrested, while raids were being carried out in the region for the arrest of Mohammad Zaheer.

The ACE circle in charge said the suspects would be produced before a local court for physical remand today (Friday).

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2014