LARKANA: Management of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Medical University (SMBBMU) has issued show-cause notices to leaders of the varsity’s teachers’ association and workers’ organisation over holding a demonstration on Tuesday (August 6) to demand timely release of their salaries.

The notices were issued to the association’s President, Dr Abdul Hafeez Abro, General Secretary, Dr Imdad Ali Domki, Associate Professor Azhar Shah (elected member of the university’s syndicate from the Ghulam Mohammed Medical College, Sukkur, as well as leaders of protesting non-teaching employees.

The demonstration was organised by the teachers’ association.

Sources in the SMBBU told Dawn on Sunday that the notices were issued on the very next day (Aug 7) by the university’s Registrar Dr Safdar Shaikh with the approval of the competent authority (vice chancellor).

While speaking to the protesting faculty and non-teaching employees of the university and its affiliated medical colleges as well as other institutions on the main campus, the leaders had criticised the management. The protesters raised their voice against an inordinate delay in disbursing their salaries. Holding banners and placards in their hands, they had raised slogans against the management and held a sit-in at the main gate of the university.

Speaking to them, Dr Abro and Dr Domki had condemned that salaries of the previous month had not been disbursed to around 2,500 teachers and other employees of the SMBBMU, Chandka Medical College, Ghulam Mohammed Mahar Medical College, Bibi Aseefa Dental College and other attached institutions. The inordinate delay, they said, had multiplied their financial worries.

The association’s president and general secretary are serving in the department of forensic medicine of the Chandka Medical College and the Bibi Aseefa Dental College, respectively.

The show-cause notices read: They [teachers] observed a strike/boycott inside the Chandka Medical College and raised slogans against the university administration and such video had gone viral on the social media. It tantamount to misconduct and violation of service conduct rules and regulations and breach of the peaceful environment of university/college, according to the content.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2024