RAWALPINDI: After the attack on Bacha Khan University on Wednesday, security branch will be starting a fresh survey of all educational institutions in the garrison city on Thursday and those not following the standard operating procedure (SOP) for security will be closed.

A report of the survey will be presented to provincial authorities.

The Inspector General of Police had already directed divisional police chiefs across the province to enforce security measures for schools and to make Quick Response Forces (QRF) on standby near schools, especially those belonging to the forces.

All district police officers were directed to conduct mock exercises every day to monitor QRF response times and that SPs and DSPs should check security measures across the province daily.

Regional Police Officer (RPO) Fakhar Sultan Raja met with SPs and district coordination officer Rawalpindi to review the security of educational institutions on Wednesday.

The RPO said that notices will be served on the institutes that had not adopted specified security measures, and if they still did not do so, they will be sealed.

To be able to better plan security details, all of the 60 schools in Rawalpindi have been categorised as A, B and C.

All the schools which have proper boundary walls, barbed wire, security guards and CCTV cameras have been categorised as A i.e. less vulnerable to terror attacks.

Those schools which have a proper boundary wall and security guards but no other security measures have been termed B, i.e. satisfactory and need to further tighten security.

After the APS attack, school administrations have been directed to establish bunkers with sand bags around the schools and for well trained gun men to be deployed there as well.

The same SOPs for security that were drafted for public schools and colleges will apply to private institutes as well.

Published in Dawn, January 21st, 2016