KARACHI, Feb 17: After a suspension of academic activities for two days, educational institutions in the city would resume activities on Saturday as usual. A source in the government said authorities did not see any obvious reason for further closure of educational institutions in the province.

However, students and parents continued calling newspaper offices till late Friday to know whether institutions were to be closed on Saturday or not.

Earlier, anticipating a law and order and poor mobility situation in the wake of rallies and demonstrations against the publication of blasphemous cartoons, the Sindh government had ordered the closure of all public and private educational institutions in the province on Feb 16 and 17.

A KU official said the university would remain open on Saturday and academic activities including examinations would be observed as usual.

The KU Controller of Examinations, Dr S Anwar Zaidi, said the examinations of BDS, BSc Physiotherapy and others would be conducted as per schedule given earlier.

The papers of BDS, Physiotherapy and LLB, which could not be held on Feb 16 and 17, would be rescheduled and new dates would be given in a day or two, he added.

The Board of Intermediate Education Karachi, which couldn’t conduct exams of the last paper of HSC supplementary examinations on Feb 16, will announce new dates for the postponed paper soon.

Holding that almost half of privately-managed schools will observe Saturday as weekly holiday, the educational circles remarked that educational activities in the city would be in full swing from Monday onwards, provided there was no major event or untoward incident in the city.

The Islami Jamiat Talaba, Karachi, has announced to bring out a rally from the Dow University of Health Sciences to Merewether Tower on Feb 19 as a mark of protest against blasphemous cartoons in a section of European press.