KARACHI: The protesting Karachi Metropolitan Corporation education department employees, who had not received their salaries despite the Eidul Azha approaching, ended their protest on Monday after getting assurance from the civic agency that they would get their salaries within the next couple of days.

The employees had been protesting for the past few days over the non-payment of salaries though the festival of Eidul Azha was to be celebrated in the next few days.

The patience of a large number of the protesting employees ran out on Monday morning and they turned up at the KMC head office in the Civic Centre to register their protest.

Metropolitan commissioner SamiSiddiqui held negotiations with the agitating employees and in the afternoon assured them that they would get their salaries within the next couple of days before Eidul Azha.

He, however, told them that an inquiry was under way to flush out ghost employees in the KMC education department and stern action would be taken against all those whose appointment was found illegal, or those who did not attend their duties regularly.

Meanwhile, Mr Siddiqui suspended KMC education department`s senior director Dr Mohammad Farooq and a show-cause notice was also served on him on account of delay in the disbursement of salaries to the department`s employees, says a KMC statement.

Before the protest came to an end after six hours, dozens of protesting teacherskept the traf fic on University Road at halt.

Carrying placards and raising slogans in front of the Civic Centre, the protesters, mainly women teachers, staged a sit-in first on the main road before moving into the Civic Centre that disrupted the traffic system on the key road link.

Attempts by the law enforcement agencies to disperse the protesters also failed when first the traffic authorities and then Pakistan Rangers, Sindh, officials held talks with representatives of the KMC teachers but they turned down their requests.

The situation caused a severe traffic jam first on University Road, where a number of vehicles were seen piled up.

Within the next few minutes, the mess stretched to the NIPA intersection in the scorching heat and affected other arteries connected with the road.