The teachers staged a rally in front of the Government Islamia College for Women, Cooper Road.
School and college teachers had started gathering at the Islamia College for Women, Cooper Road, on Monday to attend a convention against the denationalization policy.
A heavy contingent of police, including plainclothesmen and lady police, was deployed outside the college. The teachers had just come to the college when the policemen swooped down upon them. They were arrested and bundled into police trucks.
On resistance, the policemen led by the SP Cantt and the SP Sadar batoncharged male and female teachers. The policemen dragged the teachers by holding them from hair and torn their clothes. Some teachers, including women, sustained serious injuries. The policemen also arrested passersby taking them as teachers.
It may be mentioned that the policemen had also closed the college gate and did not allow anybody entry to the college campus. However, some teachers managed to enter the college and they started making speeches at the stage set up for convention. As the teachers were chanting slogans against the government and the police, the policemen entered the college and arrested several male and female teachers.
The police also arrested a member of the college’s admission committee taking her as a protester. The teacher was, however, released on the request of college principal Tauqeer Ikram.
Ms Ikram, later, informed education secretary Sibtain Fazle Haleem and said that she neither allowed the teachers to hold a convention on college campus nor called out the police. She also told the secretary that no teacher was arrested from within the college campus.
However, when reporters told her that the police did arrest teachers from within the campus, she said that she did not know that because she remained in the office.
Reportedly, the police, in their operation spanning four hours arrested around 250 teachers including Punjab Joint Action Committee of Teachers chairman Nazim Hasnain, Muhammad Arif, Rana Liaquat, Azam Butt and Rana Arshad.
After the police action, some teachers held a protest meeting in the college and condemned the police for torturing teachers. They also vowed that the protest campaign would continue till the government withdrew the notification to denationalize educational institutions.
The women teachers also staged a sit-in in the college and demanded that elderly teachers and women teachers should be released immediately.
Acceding to their demands, the police released elderly teachers as well as 35 women teachers.
Later, at around 9:30pm, the action committee members claimed that the police released all the arrested teachers from different police stations in the city.
However, till the filing of this report at 9:45pm, the police claimed they still had 115 teachers in Qila Gujjar Singh, Civil Lines and Old Anarkali police stations.
PRESS CONFERENCE: Meanwhile, speaking at a press conference at the Dyal Singh College, action committee members Raja Mahboob Husain, Rana Asghar Ali and Zaheeruddin condemned the state terrorism against teachers.
They said the teachers had called a meeting at the Islamia College, Cooper Road, to protest the government policy to denationalize educational institutions in the province. They said the police in uniform and plain clothes attacked the teachers and tortured them severely. They said the police torn their clothes and dragged women teachers. .
They that the state terrorism could not stop them from protesting against the denationalization policy. He said the teachers’ protest movement would be extended to all over the country.