KOHAT: The Parachinar Reforms Committee has expressed anger over termination of the schoolteachers of Kurram Agency, who are living in Kohat as internally displaced persons (IDPs).

At meeting of the committee, held here on Thursday, was told by Malik Swab Khan, Attaullah Ghilji, Haji Saadullah and Aziz Khan that termination of teachers by the administration of Kurram Agency aggravated sense of deprivation among the IDPs, who were living a miserable life in Kohat. The practice should be stopped at once, the members of the committee said.

Similarly, the administration transferred some teachers to central Kurram where recently military operation was concluded and school buildings and teachers’ accommodation were demolished.

“How the teachers could reside there and teach in schools at central Kurram Agency and Parachinar where their property was also still in ruins since 2008,” they questioned. The administration was also deducting their salary which was tantamount to the financial murder of the IDPs, they said.

The elders said that first of all the administration should construct schools, issue them substantial compensation for constructing their houses and shops and then order the IDPs to go back.

They said that they were offered a meagre amount of Rs35,000 for constructing their damaged and burnt houses and shops whereas in Kohat owners were paid up to Rs600,000 for a single damaged shop which spoke volumes about double standard of the government.

The committee members said that the IDPs were living in inhuman conditions and their children could not go to schools.

Those, who owned businesses worth millions of rupees in Parachinar, were forced to work as labourers to earn bread for their families, they added. The food provided to them was insufficient, they added.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2015

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