HYDERABAD, Jan 4: Following a mob attack on the Sindh Textbook Board (STBB) on December 28 and some negative orders issued by the Sindh education department, the board has been rendered all but dysfunctional.

Sources in the board told Dawn that in the wake of the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, around 200 criminals had attacked the board on the morning of Dec 28, ransacked the office, torched the computers, burnt the furniture and record and damaged the building.

They said 80 per cent of the record was gutted and only accounts and audit section had remained safe.

An insider said that the same people later attacked the Sindh University and burnt its digital and seminar libraries and also destroyed a large number of computers.

He said as if this was not enough, the board authorities had received instructions that the paper for books’ publication should not be purchased.

The banks had also been directed to freeze the accounts of the board which had further aggravated the situation.

He pointed out that the next academic year would start five months earlier, in April instead of September and, therefore, the board was duty-bound to bring all the textbooks in the market before the month of April.

He said free textbooks were also to be distributed in the 23 districts of the province before the commencement of the academic year.

Since the board has been stopped from purchasing the paper, the printing and distribution of books will naturally be delayed, he said.

When contacted on his cellphone, the chairman of the board, Shamsuddin Solangi said that the board had suffered losses to the tune of over Rs2 million as its computers, furniture had been destroyed and the building had also been damaged.

He confirmed that the board had been stopped from purchasing paper for printing textbooks and the banks had been issued instructions by the authorities concerned not to make any payment to the board.

The sources said the employees had been physically incapacitated to attend to their normal routine because they could not work without furniture.

They said that since the banks had been stopped from making any payments, the board employees would also be deprived of their salaries, which is likely to create a restive atmosphere.