PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court bench on Friday declared illegal the Nowshera education department’s directives for schools on the 24 hours duty for watchmen and guards.

A bench consisting of Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Mussarat Hilali accepted a petition filed by Insafuddin, a watchman at Government Girls Primary School, Dag Ismailkhel, Nowshera, who had challenged the said directives and subsequent guidelines issued by the school principal.

The petitioner claimed the principal of his school had issued guidelines in light of the directives of the assistant district education officer (female) about the measures to be taken by the watchman and teachers of the school.

Mohammad Asif, lawyer for the petitioner, said in the guidelines, the principal had clearly mentioned that those were issued in accordance with the directives of the ADEO.

Reading out the said guidelines, he said the watchman should function for 24 hours and during daytime, his duty should be in the watchtower or guardroom.

A Nowshera watchman had challenged education dept’s directives

He said the principal had further issued directions that it would be duty of one of the teacher once a week to come to school an hour before the official time and inspect along with the watchman the school premises and outside so as to see that none of the barbed wires or other security apparatus were damaged. The said teacher has also to go an hour late after the official closing time.

He said it was mentioned that the school should make arrangement of a rifle for the watchman.

An additional advocate general denied that no such letter was issued by the education department to the schools.

However, the petitioner’s lawyer produced a letter sent by the principal to the relevant ADEO, wherein she had pointed out that there was no guardroom on the rooftop, where the watchman or guard should perform his duty during the daytime.

He added that the principal had further written to the department that the guard had been performing duty in the open.

Mr. Asif said in the said letter the principal had also asked the department to make arrangement of an SMG (sub machine gun) for the guard as presently he was only having a pistol and in case of any untoward incident it would be difficult for him to cope with the situation.

The principal had said the school was also situated in a solitary place which further created a sense of insecurity among the staffers and students.

The counsel argued that the order of the education department and subsequent directives issued by the principal were illegal.

He contended that how a single human being could perform duty round the clock. He added that the official working hour was eight hours a day and asking an individual to perform duty beyond that duration was illegal.

He added that the state was responsible for providing security to a public school but the government had shifted its responsibility to individuals.

He questioned how the watchman or guard could be held responsible if any untoward incident or act of terrorism took place at a school.

He pointed out that the guards were not properly trained and assigning them the entire security responsibility was injustice to them.

Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2016