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Over 200 govt employees suspended for refusing poll duty

2015-06-05
HARIPUR: The deputy commissioner of Haripur has suspended 281 government employees, who had failed to perform their duty during the local government elections on May 30 in various union councils of the district.

According to details, the government employees from scale 5 to scale 17, belonging to education, health, forest and other departments, who had willfully or otherwise refrained from the elections duty, had been suspended for disobeying the administrative orders.

Asad, a superintendent at the deputy commissioner office, told Dawn that irrespective of their grades, the employees, who didn`t perform the duty, would face disciplinary action.

Malik Hafeez, president of Primary Teachers Association, district Haripur has denied that any teaching staff had refused to perform the duty. He said that being lawful voters, hundreds of men and women teachers had been denied the voting right, which was unconstitutional and unlawful.

`They could not poll their votes. Either they were deputed outside their union council, where their voters were registered, or they were short of time to cast the vote,` he said.

The women teachers, he said, had undergone the worst kind of ordeal as they had to travel miles outside their union councils. They had to perform their duty for two days and two nights in far flung areas, where no security was available for them, he added.

Similarly, Mr Hafeez said, male staff had to stay nights in primary schools or other government facilities without any proper arrangements. He said that women teachers belonging to Ghazi were sent to Nara Amazai and the residents of Haripur were deputed in Ghazi.

He claimed that most of the teachers, who had been suspended, had performed the duty. Their returning officers had placed their name twice in the duty lists, he added.

Mr Hafeez said that bureaucracy had made a mockery of teaching profession by suspending teachers, who were burdened with extra-duty at the polling stations. The employees of other departments, who performed the duty with the teachers, were ignorant about the voting process, he said.

Mr Hafeez complained about the non-cooperative attitude of the police, who according to him, remained aloof from all kinds of pressures being faced by the teaching staff.

He said that it was contrary to the ground realities to blame teachers for the mismanagement of the district administration on the elections day. He said that even women teachers performing duty in desolate and hilly areas had not been provided with transport. Correspondent