Court calls for police, education dept reports on school security

Petitioners accuse govt of putting the responsibility on school management or parents

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) issued on Wednesday notices to the provincial police chief, home and education secretaries with directions to submit detailed reports and the standard operating procedures adopted for schools’ security.

The authorities have developed procedures to ensure security at educational institutions in the wake of threats of a Peshawar school-like terrorist attack in the province. Headed by SHC chief justice Maqbool Baqar, the bench called for the reports while hearing a petition seeking directions for the authorities to take adequate security arrangements at both public and private educational institutions in the province.

The petition was jointly filed by the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education Research, the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum and human rights activist, Javed Iqbal Burki. They submitted that, following the December 16 terrorist attack on Army Pubic School in Peshawar that killed over 130 students and staffers, the educational institutions across the country are under threat of similar assaults by banned organisations.

According to intelligence reports, they claimed, the welfare schools run by communities in Karachi are at high risk, adding that some private institutions and schools have also complained of receiving threats.

The petitioners said that schools in the province were scheduled to reopen after winter vacations on January 12 but certain schools have delayed resuming educational activities due to such threats. They recalled that the Sindh government had decided on January 8 that only those schools where so-called foolproof security arrangements have been made will reopen on January 12.

They informed the judges that other provinces, including the Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the Islamabad Capital Territory, have formulated standard operating procedures and have directed the school administrations to adopt measures, including raising boundary walls, topped with razor wires, installing CCTV cameras, etc.

The petitioners claimed that nothing has been done to promulgate such SOPs in Sindh, where the authorities have put the responsibility of educational institutions’ protection either on the school management or the parents.

The judges were told that the provincial government spent Rs200 million every month on the security of 600 VIPs, including the ministers and the foreigners.

The bench issued notices to the chief secretary, the home and education secretaries for January 21. They have been directed to submit detailed report on the measures taken for the protection of educational institutions, including but not limited to the standard operating procedures, proposed by them. The judges also directed them to provide details of the deployment of security on such institutions by the next hearing.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2015.