GUJRAT: Police arrested an 18-year-old youth for instigating students to attack a police picket on the GT Road instead of attacking the campuses of the Punjab Group of Colleges (PGC) in Gujrat.

Ahmed Mir of Madina Syedan had uploaded a post on social media, asking the students to attack Jattuwakal picket of Civil Lines Police Station.

In the post, he said attacking the PGC campuses would be of no result in the war on the incumbent government and keeping silent against the rulers might become even worse for the students.

Police said Mir was found delivering a speech to dozens of unidentified students in front of the Govt Science College, GT Road, while leading a protest rally; however, police reached the spot and arrested him whereas the others managed to flee.

Police lodged a case against him as well as 20 unidentified suspects under sections of PPC and 16 MPO on the report of Sub-Inspector Saleem.

A police officer said the suspect was not a student but running a student group through social media and police were interrogating him to trace and arrest the remaining culprits.

The security at the local campuses of the PGC as well as other private and public colleges in across the district has been tight since the violent attacks by the students on the PGC campuses in the district in the wake of alleged rape of a girl in Lahore about 10 days back.

Contingents of police have been performing the security duties on these campuses as the local campuses of PGC on Friday resumed the academic and administrative activities partially; however, from Monday, the campuses will resume the full activities.

Gujrat police have so far lodged 10 cases in connection with the violent protests and clashes at the PGC campuses in the district during which a security guard was killed and several students were injured.

As many as 150 of the total around 1,100 suspects have been arrested out of which around 10 were released on bail and remaining are still in the district jail.

A senior official told Dawn that out of the arrested suspects, around 20 were the non-student elements.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2024