BAJAUR, June 22: The education department has suspended 35 schoolteachers for remaining absent from their duties for months, sources told Dawn.

A team of the department and the political administration also took three tribal Maliks into custody, as they had converted government schools into their guest houses.

Education department officials had been receiving complaints about  the continuous absence of schoolteachers in the remote and mountainous areas.

The team conducted raids and suspended 35 teachers for negligence.

Most of the suspended teachers, the sources said, had gone abroad for jobs and their salaries were being received by their relatives.