ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad Police on Monday briefly detained unemployed PhD holders in Banigala, where they were protesting and asking the government to provide them with jobs.

Unemployed PhD holders staged a protest demonstration in Banigala near the private residence of Prime Minister Imran Khan.

According to the protestors, the police bundled several of them into vans and subjected them to torture before sending them to the Bhara Kahu police station. They were released later on.

“We were detained by police and were shifted to the Bhara Kahu police station, and now we have been released. This is great injustice with PhD holders,” Dr Sher Afzal, president Phd Association said, alleging that the police also thrashed some scholars.

Meanwhile, an officer of the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration told the media that the police did not torture the protestors, rather, efforts were made to convince them to call off their protest.

He said that despite all efforts and assurances given by ICT administration and the Prime Minister’s Advisor on Capital Development Authority Affairs Ali Awan, the protesters did not clear the VVIP route.

He said, later on the police bundled six to eight protesters in a car who were later released.

However, a protester told Dawn that before bundling the protestors into vans, the police resorted to torture and shifted around 30 of them to the Bhara Kahu police station, where they were kept for around two hours. He said the police had also thrashed female protestors.

In October last year, the scholars had also staged a protest at Banigala, where they burnt copies of their degrees and said the Higher Education Commission had failed to provide them with jobs in public sector universities.

They had called off their protest when special assistant to the prime minister on political affairs, Naeemul Haq called a delegation of the protesters to the Prime Minister’s Office where he assured them that the government would look into the matter.

However, they say that government did not fulfill its promise of resolving their issue that led them to stage a protest in Banigala on Monday.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2019