KARACHI: Dozens of National Testing Service-qualified teachers, including women, on Thursday staged a protest outside the Sindh AG office on University Road against non-payment of salaries despite regularisation of their jobs by the Sindh government.

The protesters holding placards and chanting slogans blamed the Sindh AG office for not paying their salaries for the last five months despite regularisation of their jobs.

Though the protest came to an end after more than four hours, the leaders of the NTS-qualified teachers association said that there was no word from the AG Sindh office and provincial government.

“So we are only suspending our protest for a brief period of time,” said Abdul Khaliq of NTS Teachers Ittehad.

“We would continue our peaceful struggle for our rights. The AG Sindh office has no right to block our salaries when some 1,500 teachers hailing from Karachi were regularised by the provincial government earlier this year. This is injustice and we would raise voice against it.”

The rally blocked other vehicles’ movement on the key road which led to traffic jams on University Road and Rashid Minhas Road.

Following a protest in December 2017 that had turned violent after a large number of teachers arrived at the Karachi Press Club (KPC) and tried to move towards the CM House were baton-charged by the police, the Sindh government decided to regularise the services of 21,000 teachers that had passed the NTS exams.

However, the teachers said they had been given proper pay-scale but they had not been provided salaries for the last five months.

“A total of 15,000 teachers were inducted purely on merit in 2014 in Sindh, of which only 1,500 belong to Karachi. After years of struggle and protest, their jobs were regularised earlier this year but here comes another challenge as the Sindh AG office is not releasing their salaries,” said Mr Khaliq.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2018