THE precautions taken for the security of schools are fraught with dangers as children remain vulnerable while entering and leaving school as anyone can throw hand-grenades driving on a motorcycle and disappear in the crowd.

By providing guns to teachers and staff members just with basic lesson of how to hold and fire the gun makes no sense.

In fact, it will prove more dangerous with weapons than being without weapons. A highly-trained police constable cannot shoot straight, how then do we expect a teacher with very little training to use a weapon effectively?

The country is otherwise flooded with illegal weapons. The need of the hour is to deweaponise society. The country has already been turned into a police state and its further militarisation will pose a serious threat to our citizens and overall endanger the national security plan.

We must stop taking artificial ad hoc security steps as these cannot substitute a long-term permanent solution. Let us not turn security into a farce.

M. A. Butt

Karachi

Published in Dawn March 4th , 2015

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