Female schoolteachers stage protest in Kurram

Demand arrest of those responsible for the May 4 slaughter

PARACHINAR:

Female schoolteachers of Kurram tribal district staged a protest demonstration against the May 4 slaughter of schoolteachers and demanded the arrest of those responsible.

Hundreds of teachers marched against the tragic incident and said that all the teachers and drivers were made hostage first inside the government high school building and then put to death one by one.

“One of the teachers was posted in the school for 14 years and another one for seven years. They were doing their job in the far-flung mountainous area of Tari Mangal just to educate the young generation,” they said, adding that the headmaster was present at the time of this tragic incident but so far government has failed to arrest even a single accused in this case.

Speakers demanded that all the school staff which was on duty at the school should be made part of the investigation as they are the eyewitnesses of the tragic massacre. It may be mentioned here that the district administration has already linked the murder of eight people to a property dispute and claimed that a teacher was killed first and in its retaliation, the opponent group tried to kill a rival schoolteacher inside a high school and seven people were killed when they tried to save that teacher.

Local residents refused to buy the story and said that the brutal carnage occurred in the Sunni majority Tari Mangal area while all the slain teachers were Shia Muslims and it was a plain case of sectarianism.

On Thursday, Federal Minister Sajjid Turi distributed compensation packages among the families of the four slain teachers.

He said that several accused have been arrested in the case and they were being interrogated.

Deputy Commissioner Kurram Saiful Islam, teachers’ representatives and local tribal elders were present on this occasion.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2023.