Srinagar, June 9: Teachers at an army-run school in Kashmir have submitted resignations en masse after one of their colleagues was purportedly asked to leave for referring to slain Hizbul commander Sabzar Bhat as a "martyr".

The teachers of Army Goodwill School Sharifabad - one of many launched for civilians under an army public outreach programme called Sadhbhawna - in Budgam district said Mudassir Abdullah was asked by the army to quit on Monday. "Although no formal expulsion order has been issued, a commanding officer of the army asked him to leave the school. He has not been coming since Monday," a teacher said.

Principal Shahida Khan confirmed most of the school's 30 teachers had submitted their resignations yesterday but clarified that their papers had not been accepted yet. "I have asked them to meet the management to sort out the issue."

Asked whether they had handed in their papers in solidarity with Abdullah, Khan said "something like that" but refused to elaborate. The row comes amid a backlash over the army's use of a civilian as a human shield against stone-throwers in an April byelection in Srinagar.

At the school, things came to a boil recently after words like "Azadi" written on the notice board by some students of Class IX caught the attention of army officials. "The army asked us to explain why such a thing was happening. It was during this conversation that the particular teacher (Abdullah) told the officers things have been volatile after Sabzar Bhat's martyrdom (last month) and that is why the students were doing so," a teacher said.

"The army officers were taken aback and asked how he referred to Sabzar as a martyr. The fact is that we Kashmiris refer to slain militants as martyrs. This has become our way of speaking. We tried to explain it to the officers but they took strong objection to such a description," the teacher added.

On Monday, the officers allegedly asked Abdullah to sign some papers. "He was asked to admit he was provoking the students but he refused to sign because he believed he had done nothing of that sort. He was then asked to leave right away," another teacher said.

Several of the teachers said they had resigned in solidarity with Abdullah and insisted he had done nothing wrong.

Principal Khan said the army had also asked for the parents of the students who had scrawled the words on the notice board to be summoned and told their children should not repeat such acts.

"I asked parents to counsel their wards but instead they asked for DCs (discharge certificates to leave the school)...We have not rusticated any student," Khan said.

Asked about the controversy, an army officer in Srinagar said they were ascertaining the details. The army runs 29 "goodwill schools" across the Valley. The one in Sharifabad has around 470 students.

Hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani had recently asked parents not to send their children to such schools.