MANSEHRA: The Mansehra police have ordered the demolition of five seminaries under construction along the proposed China-Pakistan Economic Corridor in the district.

“We have issued notices to the relevant caretakers asking them to immediately demolish the five seminaries being built on the CPEC route in Mansehra as no new seminary can be put up on the route under the National Action Plan on security,” Mansehra DPO Ahsan Saifullah told a news conference here on Monday.

The DPO said the caretakers were given three days to pull down their respective seminaries and that if the orders were not complied with, then the district administration would do the job.

Accompanied by ASP Sonia Shimorz Khan and DSP Ijaz Khan, the DPO said 70 seminaries were located on the CPEC route in the district but no action was being taken against them as they’re built before the announcement of the CPEC plan.

Mansehra DPO says NAP bans new religious schools along corridor

He said in past, seminaries were constructed without the government’s approval but in future, those wanting to build seminary would have to seek the police’s approval.

Mr. Saifullah said the police were working actively and vigilantly to provide security to over 2,400 government and private schools in the district but at the same time, it was also the responsibility of the school administrations to adopt security measures on campus for the security of students and staff members.

“We will not tolerate any security lapse on part of the school administrations. Until now, we’ve registered FIRs against 30 headmasters over failure to ensure foolproof security of their respective schools,” he said.

The DPO also said the police had arrested four members of an inter-provincial gang of robbers, who used to loot the people wearing uniforms of the police and security forces.

He said the arrests were made in Khattanda Galla forest on the Karakoram Highway in the city’s environs.

Mr. Saifullah said the police also seized arms, uniforms of police and security forces, national identity cards, local and foreign currency notes, cellphones, and other documents.

He said the arrested men including Mohammad Azam, Niaz Mohammad, Nazir Khan and Abdul Salam had confessed to committing dozens of robberies in Hazara division and other parts of country.

The DPO said other members of the gang, which had been active in the region since 2006, would be arrested soon.

He said the police didn’t rely on the people-police liaison committees for such arrests by and large as most of their members had a ‘shady past’.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2016