SIALKOT:Students of the Government Girls Primary School, Gull Bahar Khurd, have taken upon themselves to sweep and scrub their school and classrooms in the absence of sweepers.

They have been doing so for the last two and half years, they told Dawn.

Outside the school stands clean and shining green plaque: `Come and see, how we have been promoting the quality education`.

A few parents said the school management forced their children to clean the school and every child had to do this `duty` once a week.

They criticised the school management for forcing their children into the `involuntary act`.

They urged Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Gujranwala Commissioner Khwaja Shamail Ahmed and the Sialkot district administration to look into the matter.

The school management had no sweeper. They said they had repeatedly brought the situationinto the notice of the senior officials but to no avail.

PROTEST: Hundreds of women with Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) activists staged a demonstration here on Tuesday in protest at loadshedding and brownouts of gas for domestic consumers.

They also staged a sit-in at the city intersection with banners and placards in their hands.

They said the congested residential, industrial and commercial areas of Sialkot, Daska, Sambrial, Uggoki, Kotli Loharaan and Pasrur were facing an ordeal due to brown-outs and loadshedding of gas.

PTI leaders Aliya Hina, Syeda Farah Azami and Nusrat Jamshaid Malik led the protest.

Ms Hina said the loadshedding and brown-outs had disrupted their routine life, especially at morning and evening hours. She said the students had to go to their schools or colleges without breakfast.

Some women said they spent hours in kitchen at night when gas supplies got improved a bit.