MANSE HRA: The three-day special anti-polio campaign suffered a blow on its first day on Wednesday as women teachers refused to be part of it insisting academic activities in their schools will have a negative bearing.

Upset by the boycott, the district administration warned the teachers not performing the assigned vaccination duty will be dealt with strictly.

`Punitive action will be taken against defiant teachers,` deputy commissioner Iqbal Hussain told Dawn.

The district administration had called women teachers of the government`s educational institutions to the New Circuit House for training in vaccination.

However, the teachers didn`t attend the training programme, protested in the parking lot of the premises and announced the boycott of the campaign.

They insisted academic activities in their schools would suffer a great deal especially when the fifth grade examinations were around the corner if they performed anti-polio duties.A teacher said her participation in the vaccination campaign would distress her family.

`Our colleagues, who administered anti-polio drops to children or performed other vaccination duties in the past, have yet to be paid honorariums.

Under such circumstances, who will perform anti-polio campaign to the misery of her domestic life,` she said.

All Teachers Association, Mansehra chapter president Abdul Salam said women teachers should only be engaged for vaccinating children if there`s a shortage of women health staff workers and when that wasn`t the case, they were justified to protest.

He said he knew polio vaccination was a national cause but women teachers couldn`t go from door to door for it.

Mr. Salam said male teachers were ready to perform anti-polio duties but the government should ensure that members of the teaching community will not be subjected to any injustices.

Earlier in the day, assistant commissioner Altaf Hussain told reporters that the special vaccination campaign, which would last until Nov 26, was planned after a polio case was detected in neighbouring Kohistan district of late.

He said over 1,000 lady health workers and lady health supervisors had already been engaged for administering polio drops to children.

`The health department faces a serious shortage of female staff membersand so we are involving women teachers for anti-polio duties,` he said.

NOTICES ISSUED: The tehsil administration of Oghi on Wednesday issued notices to the six residents over the construction of shops at graveyard land.

AC Altaf Hussain told reporters here that the administration issued notices to shop owners seeking voluntary demolition of own structures in Tashkand area in line with a Peshawar High Court ruling.

He warned if shop owners didn`t act accordingly, the administration would pull down illegal shops.

Mr. Hussain said encroachers of graveyard land would be dealt with strictly.

NEW EXAM SYSTEM PROTESTED: The private educational institutions in Hazara division on Wednesday asked the provincial government to do away with its plan to hold fifth grade examinations through the educational board and reverse recent changes to Islamiyat curriculum and warned if that didn`t happen, they would organise a sit-in outside the provincial assembly in Peshawar.

`We all, the associations of private educational institutions in Hazara, have decided to close schools and protest outside the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly if the government doesn`t accept our demands,` Education Forum general secretary Tabarak Hussain told reporters here.