GILGIT, Oct 3: Teachers in the Northern Areas on Thursday decided to boycott academic activities in 13 colleges until the resolution of their demands.

Office-bearers of the Northern Areas’ Colleges Academic Staff Association accused the Northern Areas administration of having transferred several of the association’s activists, including its president Prof G. M. Khan, to far-flung areas punishing them for taking part in trade union activities.

These transfers, they added, had been made at the behest of the Karakoram University’s vice-chancellor, Dr Azam Khan.

They alleged that the police was used to compel professors and lecturers of the Degree College, Gilgit, to accept the transfer orders, adding that raids were conducted on Wednesday night, forcing them to accede to transfer orders.

They were threatened that if they did not do as they were told, they would be served fresh explanation orders.

The association’s office-bearers said that the transferred teachers were issued transfer orders on Monday and were asked to take their new assignments on Tuesday without being given any advance mobilization money.

The transferred teachers were threatened to be arrested if they turned up at the Degree College, Gilgit.

Personnel of the police and Frontier Constabulary, they said, humiliated faculty members by subjecting them to body searches at the college’s entrance.