PESHAWAR : Police refuse to vacate school despite CM’s orders
Bureau Report
PESHAWAR, Sept 10: Police have not yet fully vacated the premises of a school in the Tehkal area despite being ordered by the chief minister to do so four days ago.
Sources in the education department said that the police department had set up its 30th station in the city four months ago near the University Town Police Station. Because it lacked its own building, the police had temporarily set up the station inside the Government Higher Secondary School in Tehkal.
Sources said that the police had promised to shift the station to a new building within a few weeks but it had gradually increased the presence of staff and brought in more equipment, creating problems for school administration and students.
“Students often complained about hearing cries of criminals being tortured. The police routinely beat up criminals chained inside the school’s examination hall,” they said. Some students enjoyed criminals being thrashed so much that they bunked classes to witness the scenes, the sources said. Sources said that the school had been established in 1986. A year later, its status had been upgraded to a higher secondary school to enrol students in intermediate classes from nearby localities of Palosai, Regi and Sufaid Dheri because they lacked colleges.
The school had already allotted a room to the police eight years ago in which they had set up a checkpost. “But that was not a problem because it used to be manned by a few policemen who also took care of the school’s security,” said an officer at the district education department.
Sources said that soon after the establishment of the police station in the school’s premises, several meetings had taken place between the senior officials of education and police departments to shift the police station from the school but which yielded no results.
They said that the school was already overcrowded and the administration had difficulty in accommodating about 700 students, adding that students often complained that they felt frightened by the police presence.
A school official said that they had repeatedly asked the senior officials to remove the police from the school. “The school has no washroom. It also lacks sanitary and drinking water facilities. Students and teachers are annoyed by the occupation of three spacious rooms at the school,” said the official.
According to him, the government had first set up checkpost and then the police station without bothering to seek permission from the school’s administration.
On Friday, the NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani had asked the police department to shift its personnel from the school premises, but there was no change in the situation.
Chief of the Capital City Police Abdul Majeed Marwat said that two of the three rooms had already been vacated and the police officials had been asked to shift to the University Town Police Station.
He said that they would stay there until the availability of another suitable building in the area. He said that the police had three damaged vehicles in the school and other equipment that would be vacated soon.
However, an official of the University Town Police Station said they were facing space constraints as most of the police officials had no place to sit or sleep when they were not on duty.
