KARACHI: A proposal for raising boundary walls of 81 primary and secondary schools across the province had been approved while a Rs40 million separate scheme for covering 16 colleges was in the pipeline, the Sindh High Court was informed on Friday.

A two-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, was hearing a set of petitions filed by the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education Research (Piler) and others.

The petitioners said educational institutions across the country were under threat of attacks by banned organisations in the wake of terror attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar.

Additional advocate general Ghulam Mustafa Maheser filed a report and submitted that a summary for the funds for erecting the boundary walls of 81 schools had already been sent to the chief secretary. He added that work on the project would start immediately after the release of funds.

The report said a separate scheme titled ‘Construction/ Repair/ Raising Compound Walls of Colleges in Sindh (security-threatened colleges)’ covering 16 colleges at the estimated cost of Rs40 million was in the pipeline.

It added that information regarding the construction of boundary walls around 1,877 educational institutions within the estimated cost of Rs3,535 million had been received from field officers of the education and literacy department. The report said the information was duly recommended by the deputy commissioners concerned.

It said a summary was being moved to the chief minister for arranging the funds from outside the ADP for construction and repair of proposed boundary wall around the educational institutions.

The bench was earlier informed that 81 schools were declared “sensitive” and steps were being taken to erect boundary walls around them.

The petitioners said that as per media reports, welfare schools run by communities in Karachi were at high risk. They added that some private institutions and schools had also complained of receiving threats.

According to them, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Islamabad Capital Territory had formulated standard operating procedure (SOP) directing the school administrations to adopt measures, including raising boundary wall with razor wire, and installing closed-circuit television cameras.

However, they argued, nothing had been done to promulgate such SOP in the province, where the authorities had placed the responsibility for educational institutions’ protection either on the school managements or on parents.

The petitioners asked the court to ask the government to provide foolproof security to the educational institutions in the province and declare that VIP security to politicians and ministers without reasonable classification was discriminatory and unlawful.

The special education secretary had earlier informed the court that the government had allocated Rs7,636.09 million funds for schools security while the survey results of 18 districts had been received.

He also informed the court that the education department had sent PC-I for security and raising and constructing compound walls of 8,417 schools of the province at an estimated cost of Rs7,636.09 million.

The bench put off the hearing to a date to be later pronounced by the court office.

Jehangir Park case

Meanwhile, another bench was informed by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation that the debris had been removed from the historical park in Saddar, Jehangir Park.

The bench was hearing a set of identical petitions seeking rehabilitation of the park and removal of encroachments from it.

A KMC official submitted a statement along with photographs in the court. He said development and rehabilitation work was under way after the KMC removed debris from the park.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2016