Kosht people set deadline for govt over school Class IV job

CHITRAL: Residents of Kosht in Upper Chitral have given the education department June 10 as a deadline to give a Class IV job to the son of a man on whose land a primary school is constructed.

Under an agreement, the Govt Primary School No 2 in Kosht was established on the land of Shamsul Qadir. In return, he was to get the Class IV (watchman) job.

Qadir got the job when the school was set up on his land about 20 years ago. But when he retired recently his son was denied the job by the education department.

The family alleged that MPA Molana Hidayatur Rehman has managed to induct one of his supporters on the post by pressuring the department.

Women, children and aged people of the village staged a sit-in to express solidarity with the family and said they would also stage a protest outside the office of the DEO if the family was not given the job by June 10.

The protesters said they would boycott the school by pulling out their children and admitting them in any other school.

They said an outsider, who is also a disabled person, has been appointed as the watchman of the school.

The residents said the land owner’s son should be given the job or the department should pay him Rs4 million as the cost of his land at the current market rate.

The protesters said if the department failed to meet the demand they would not let the school function and neither would allow any other person to join the school as a watchman.

There have been a number of similar complaints by people on whose land schools have been set up.

They say Class IV jobs were the right of landowners as a compensation but these were being snatched from them on political pressure.

Reporting: GH Farooqui