Academic affair: Students protest encroachment on school land

Seek action against the ‘encroachers’; legal forum to probe the issue.

RAWALPINDI:

Worked up over an alleged encroachment attempt on their school land, students of Government Muslim Higher Secondary School for Boys staged a protest demo on Monday.

The students including boys of primary and secondary classes along with some teachers came out on Saidpur Road near Asghar Mall Chowk and blocked the road for an hour. They chanted slogans against the encroachers and urged the district education department and the city government to take action against the land grabbers.

Earlier the same day, the school administration was cleaning the school ground following government directions to ward off any epidemics, when some locals tried to stop them, said a teacher, requesting anonymity. The locals said they had obtained a stay order from a court as they wanted to reclaim the route to their houses.

The school head called the police, accusing the locals of meddling with official duties, the teacher said.

Meanwhile, the District Officer (DO) Secondary Schools Muhammad Jamshaid arrived at the school and assured the protesting students that the matter would be taken up with the district administration and higher officials of the education department.

The DO quoted the police as saying that both the school administration and the locals had obtained stay orders from a local court.

He admitted that the land within the boundary of the school had never been a street and the school administration did not encroach upon it. However, he said the matter would be taken up by district education department with district coordination officer on Tuesday and a proper legal forum would be used to stop the encroachment of the school land.

It has been observed that many other schools in Rawalpindi city are either battling to save their land from land grabbers or their lands has already been encroached.

The encroachers have focused on the land of Government Ziaul Uloom High School for Boys and Government Mission Higher Secondary School at Raja Bazaar. The land of Government Islamia Higher Secondary School near Liaquat Bagh and Government Commerce College near Holy Family Hospital have already been encroached upon and the cases are pending the court.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2012.