KARACHI: Police on Tuesday baton-charged aspiring teachers and detained dozens of them when they tried to march on the Chief Minister House, witnesses and officials said.

They were protesting for the fulfilment of their demands, mainly pertaining to job orders as the protesters claimed that they had passed the required test conducted by the National Testing Service (NTS) in 2013 for the posts of teachers.

Containers were already deployed on the main Ziauddin Ahmed Road leading to the CM House while several other connecting roads were also closed in the evening, causing immense inconvenience to the commuters.

Police said that a few hundred teachers attempted to move from the Karachi Press Club (KPC) when they were stopped by the police at a nearby electronic fuel station where barricades were erected.

Mansoor Marri, general secretary of the NTS-passed teachers body, told Dawn that police resorted to baton-charge, resulting in injuries to three teachers.

He said the police also detained 250 teachers, including 50 females. After the police action, the protesters returned to their camp outside the KPC where they resumed their protest sit-in.

Meanwhile, Saddar SP Ali Mardan Khosa denied having baton-charged the protesters.

He said that over 80 teachers, including some females, had been detained temporarily. He said all of them were released late in the evening.

A meeting between the teachers’ representatives and government officials was expected to be held on Wednesday (today).

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2022