MIANWALI, Nov 30: The issue of boundary wall expansion by the management of the Government Comprehensive High School took a new turn on Thursday when students rallied behind their principal and resorted to academic boycott.

As students of three other government high schools in the town also joined the strike, police came under pressure to register a case against a tehsil municipal administration councillor and his four companions.

As the story goes, the Allama Iqbal Open University got allotted a chunk of land adjacent to the Comprehensive High School for the construction of its sub-office. There is a thoroughfare in-between the school and AIOU land, which exists in the revenue record as municipal property for the last 60 years. In a bid to extend its boundary, the school administration on Wednesday included the thoroughfare land in its premises by raising a wall.

Area councillor Hameedullah Khan informed the TMA about the illegal construction. The TMO came to the site with his staff and demolished the wall.

Principal Sher Abbas Khan insisted that the land in question belonged to the school, and that he would not allow public to use it as a thoroughfare. Residents of Mohallah Ibrahimabad backed their councillor and agitated against the construction.

The principal on the other hand gave a call to all schools for a half-day strike and approached police to register a case of wall demolition.

The city police registered an FIR against Hamidullah Khan, local trade leader Fazalur Rahman Khan, Liaqat Ali, Sajid Khan and Tariq Khan of Mohallah Ibrahimabad.

The tehsil municipal officer told Dawn that the land was an official thoroughfare in the TMA as well as the revenue record. The school management, he said, had no concern with it, and that they had no record to lay their claim over it.

Residents of Ibrahimabad, who will face problems if the thoroughfare is closed, urged the Punjab government to take note of the principal’s conduct who was ‘misusing’ his office and instigating students to academic boycott.