Orange train route: Don’t raze our homes to run a train, PU teachers say

‘Protest to continue until CM and LDA issue a notification to change plan’.

LAHORE: Several employees of the Punjab University held a protest demonstration against the Metro Orange Train Project on The Mall on Thursday.

They demanded that the route be changed so that their houses would not have to be razed.

The protesters held a rally on The Mall. They carried banners and placards inscribed with slogans demanding a change in plans to build a shed on land belonging to the PU Housing Society where several teachers have already constructed houses. “We built our homes after paying instalments for 13 years,” a teacher said.

Punjab University’s Academic Staff Association president Hassan Mobeen Alam and secretary Mahboob Hussain led the rally. They said that they would not stop protesting till they received a formal announcement from the CM or the LDA regarding a change of the plan. They said that the teachers’ federation was ready to hold countrywide demonstrations and shut down universities. They said teachers were being forced to take to the streets and boycott classes and exams.

Earlier, addressing the general body meeting at the Senate Hall, PU employees’ representatives announced that they supported all their 8,000 members and supported joined the teachers in their protest.

The meeting was also addressed over phone by Lahore Transport Company Chairman Khawja Ahmed Hassaan who gave an assurance that the plan would not affect the teachers’ houses. However, the teachers rejected the assurance and demanded that the chief minister and the LDA formally announce withdrawal of the plan.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 12^th, 2015.