Teachers continued their protests to demand the payment of long overdue salaries, and were again met with repression. On 23 November 2017 dozens of government schoolteachers from the Ghotki district marched on the Sindh Assembly building in protest. The police resorted to a baton charge to beat them back. Protesters and officer bearers of the Teachers’ Action Committee reported that over a dozen teachers were injured. A number of them were also arrested but quickly released.
Another protest followed on 20 December. As the protesting teachers tried to move towards the Sindh Secretariat, the police intervened and again used batons and water cannons to stop them. Some 40 people were arrested. As well as back pay, the teachers were demanding permanent employment status.
On 25 December several hundred teachers again gathered at the Karachi Press Club (KPC) to press for the regularisation of their jobs. As they tried to move towards the Chief Minister’s house, police deployed on the surrounding roads baton-charged them and used tear gas and water cannons to disperse them. A woman teacher, Farzana, fell unconscious after being overcome by the tear gas while another teacher’s nose was damaged during the baton charge. One of the teachers was struck in the head so hard that he was bleeding profusely.
The police used the same tactics on yet another protest on 4 January 2018, and nearly 60 teachers were detained. Just hours later in a meeting with teachers’ representatives, the Chief Minister accepted all their demands unconditionally, which would benefit 33,000 teachers.
The Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah described the police action as unacceptable. He and Home Minister Sohail Anwar Siyal ordered the immediate release of the detained teachers, and action against the policemen who tear-gassed and baton-charged them.
