ISLAMABAD: The roads leading to Red Zone, on Wednesday evening, witnessed a massive gridlock due to protest demonstrations of the Textbook Publishers Association (TPA), sacked government employees, and medical students at three different locations.
Long queues of vehicles were witnessed at NADRA Chowk, D-Chowk, Express Chowk, Constitution Avenue, Margalla Road, Embassy Road, and other adjacent road due to protest demonstration at three different locations.
A large number of textbook publishers, printers and other related people staged a protest demonstration under the umbrella of TPA against the government’s Single National Curriculum policy.
The protesters were holding banners and placard inscribed with different slogans including “Anti-education bureaucracy is not acceptable”, “attack by foreign power on education is not acceptable”, and “Nexus of UK publisher, Oxford, and NCC is not acceptable”. The protesters led by Fawad Niaz member TPA gathered near Secretariat Metro Station. They accused the National Curriculum Council of supporting the Oxford and other international publishers instead of the local publishers. They warned of a country-wide protest, if the government did not address their genuine concerns.
They said that one book under the single curriculum would be a major economic blow to the people associated with the publishing and printing industry.
Protesters said that the move would lead to unemployment of around two million people.
Meanwhile, sacked employees of different public sector departments staged a protest demonstration and requested the Supreme Court to review its verdict about their termination and reinstate them to save their families from financial crisis.
The sacked employees staged a protest outside the National Press Club.
The decision has caused us serious mental torture because it will create financial problems for thousands of employees who are already suffering due to inflation.
Most of the sacked employees are over 50 years of age and unable to get any other job to support their families, they said. A heavy contingent of police was deployed at the protest venue and different roads to avert any untoward incident.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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