Srinagar, July 16: Jammu and Kashmir Teachers Forum (JKTF) Monday held a protest demonstration in support of their demands.
Hundreds of teachers took out a rally from Khalsa Public school at Jehangir Chowk here and were proceeding towards Civil Secretariat when police used water cannons to disperse them.
“We were holding a peaceful protest demonstration when police used their might to thwart our rally. Police lathi-charged us and arrested many of our colleagues,” said Abdul Qayoom Wani, chairman JKTF, adding, “More than 5000 teachers from different districts of the valley participated and over 2 dozen teachers were injured in the police action.”
JKTF seeks benefits of five years service to Rehbar-e-Taleems besides other demands of Education Volunteers and migrant substitute teachers.
Qayoom, who is also President of Employees Joint Action Committee (Q), asked the state government to resolve the issue of teachers. “We are giving one week ultimatum to the government to resolve all the issues of teachers otherwise we will be forced to go for agitation. RETs have been working for more than 5 years and are getting peanuts, which is unfortunate and injustice to them,” he said.
“Government is using delaying tactics to divert the attention of teachers and not addressing their problems,” he said.
Nusrat Beigh, President, Non-Teaching Forum said: “We were holding peaceful demonstrations in favour of our demands, but police started lathi-charging the teachers.”
JKTF has decided to hold a meeting of its constituent members to chalk out future course of action.
An official in Shaheed Gunj police station said: “We have not arrested any employee, they were detained for some time and later released.”

Lastupdate on : Mon, 16 Jul 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 16 Jul 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 17 Jul 2012 00:00:00 IST