RAWALPINDI: Following the Punjab chief minister’s directives, police have served notices on the educational institutions which have not yet adopted the standard operating procedures (SOP) for security and warned that their owners will be arrested next, Regional Police Officer (RPO) Mohammad Wisal Fakhar Sultan Raja said.

Special Branch has started a fresh survey of educational institutions in the garrison city to assess security measures. A detailed report of the survey will be sent to the provincial authorities.

On Friday, the Rawalpindi Commissioner Sajid Zafar Dall visited some universities and colleges to review their security arrangements and directed those institutions that had not been served notices to upgrade their security within a week or face closure.

The commissioner, accompanied by City Police Officer (CPO) Israr Abbasi, paid a visit to Rawalpindi Medical College, Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU), Comsats, Pir Meher Ali Shah Arid Agricultural University, Medical College Wah, Engineering University Taxila and other colleges.

Commissioner Sajid Zafar Dall told Dawn he had found that FJWU had adopted the right security measures as per the standard operating procedures (SOP) that were issued by the provincial government. However, he said, the rest had not done the same as yet.

“These universities were suggested they visit FJWU to see their security arrangements. Most of them had not even hired properly trained guards,” he said.

Rawalpindi Medical College, he said, needed to put many security measures in place. “The boundary walls need to be higher with barbed wire on top, properly trained guards should be hired, and an emergency line needs to be installed to help them connect with law enforcement agencies,” he added.

The commissioner said that the institutions that were not served notices had been asked to improve their security arrangements within a week after which teams will go to check them. The campuses which don’t manage to upgrade their security arrangements by then will be served notices for their closure.

The education department has also issued notices to 125 schools in the city of which 80 are private for upgrading their security arrangements.

A senior official at the education department said that many schools in the cantt areas had not followed the SOPs.

“Private schools have deployed untrained guards and that too only at the front gate. Many keep no records of the CCTC footage and most have not even installed a CCTV system,” he said.

According to an intelligence official, security around a professional college in Rawalpindi has been tightened after reports that a terror group is planning to target it.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2016