HYDERABAD, April 24: The Joint Action Committee of the Government Sachal Sarmast Arts and Commerce College on Tuesday appealed to the governor, chief minister, chief secretary, vice-chancellor of Sindh University and former students to help save the institution from total destruction.

Speaking at a news conference at the press club on Tuesday the committee head Prof Abdul Razzaq Bhatti and secretary Prof Allah Dino Soomro said that the irrational steps of the Sindh education department had messed up academic atmosphere at the college established as far back as 1952.

They said that lately the department suspended the principal of the college and professor of English Nazeer Hussain Pathan for failing to inform it that a college lecturer was also working in a local newspaper and a private TV channel and had also visited America with President Pervez Musharraf.

The principal’s suspension was illegal because the chief secretary was the competent authority to issue such orders, they said.

They said that an associate professor of chemistry of the Government College Khipro had been appointed principal in his place despite the fact that the there was no chemistry department in the college.

They claimed that the associate professor was to be sent to Mirpurkhas under the directives of chief minister but the education minister substituted Mirpurkhas with Sachal College. Thirty-three teachers had informed the secretary in writing that they were not prepared to work with Abdul Aziz Panhwar on moral grounds, they said.

Since March 22, the teaching and non-teaching staff were performing their duties wearing black armbands as mark of protest over the arbitrary steps but the department failed to take any notice of the deteriorating situation.

DEMO: Residents of Jamal Shah jo Pir, including women and children, staged a demonstration outside the press club on Tuesday against threats by some influential persons that they would be ejected from their homes.

The protesters Roshan Ji, Rasool Bux, Mohammad Ali and Tariq Ali told journalists that they had been living in Jamal Shah jo Pir for last 80 years.