More than 12 employees of J&K education department were taken into preventive custody today as they tried to stage a protest outside civil secretariat here against the "non-seriousness" of the state government to address their demands.
Several state government education employees assembled in front of the civil secretariat in the central city under the banner of Jammu and Kashmir Teachers Forum (JKTF) and started shouting anti-government slogans in support of their demands, including release of salaries of teachers engaged under various centrally-sponsored schemes like SSA and RMSA and pay anomaly of masters, police officials said.
Police immediately swung into action and detained over a dozen employees, including the chairman of the Forum Abdul Qayoom Wani, they said.
Wani, who is also president of Employees Joint Action Committee - an umbrella of various government employees forums and associations - accused the government of being "non-serious".
Wani said the government talks of making the education a primary concern, but has done nothing to address the problems and troubles faced by the teachers.
The teachers were exempted from today's protest owing to the annual examinations, he said.
"Only central, provincial and district level leaders of Teachers Forum took part in the peaceful protest," he said condemning the police action.
