Amid mounting unrest in Pakistan’s Balochistan, authorities have suspended 38 assistant professors and lecturers, including six female college instructors, for a three-month period. The punitive step follows their role in employee protests against provincial policies.
Citing the Balochistan Employees Efficiency and Discipline Act, the Secretary’s office detailed violations: strike involvement, office lockouts, and workflow disruptions. Prominent among them is Abdul Quddus Kakar, head of the Balochistan Grand Alliance, which has mobilized workers for better pay and conditions through sustained action.
Protests have highlighted systemic failures, from delayed salaries to crumbling school infrastructure, resonating widely in the troubled region. The government’s response has drawn sharp rebukes from unions, who decry it as rights suppression. ‘Punishing protest poisons relations irreversibly,’ a union voice warned.
Student activists with the Baloch Students Action Committee amplified the outcry, decrying a pattern of brute force against truth-tellers. ‘From history’s pages, Balochistan knows governments quashing voices with vendettas – this is no different,’ they noted. Suspending knowledge-bearers while preaching education betrays true intents.
They demanded an end to strong-arm tactics and a turn to talks. This confrontation lays bare Balochistan’s fractures: ethnic tensions, resource disputes, and administrative apathy. As employee resolve hardens, the suspensions may catalyze wider defiance, testing Pakistan’s grip on its turbulent frontier.