RAWALPINDI, Dec 15: About one thousand college freshmen stormed the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) in the city on Thursday and set it on fire in frustration over BISE's delay in announcing “revised results” of their first year examinations.

They arrived outside the BISE office on Sixth Road marching from Murree Road where they pulled down banners and billboards of political parties and commercial enterprises.

For a while the crowd stood there protesting that BISE had promised to announce the revised results on Nov 30 - after the original results were botched by a glitch in the board's computer system.

Around noon, the protesters, worked up by the incessant chanting of slogans, broke through the policemen and barriers protecting the office and went on a rampage inside.

Eyewitnesses said the few policemen guarding the office fled as the students crashed through the barriers, and that emergency exit had to be arranged for the newly-appointed chairman and controller of BISE. Police called to the scene used batons and tear gas to control the rioting but failed.

“We have been avoiding a crackdown on the students for the fear of causing casualties. But if the situation goes out of control, police would not allow them to damage public property,” the City Police Officer told the media at the scene. Eventually riot police arrived and fired into the air to disperse the crowd.

It were the gunshots that helped the police control the violent protesters,” a police officer said. In the hunt that followed police arrested more than 60 people, mostly students.

BISE spokesman Arsalan Cheema told Dawn after the mayhem that lasted for four hours that the protesters broke furniture and windows and set office records on fire.

“Luckily important documents did not catch fire,” he said, adding that the papers burnt related to the admission forms of second year students.

Rioters had pulled out the furniture from the office and made a bonfire of it on the road. They also damaged three cars parked outside the BISE office.

All education boards in the Punjab had to recheck the answer sheets of the first year exams after violent protests broke out in October over the flawed results produced by the mismanaged online system introduced by the Punjab government for the boards this year.

Unlike other boards, the Rawalpindi board failed to meet the deadline of 35 days for announcing the revised results, angering some 50,000 students.

“First the online result caused us frustration, and now the delay in announcing the revised results is testing our patience,” said Salim Raja who has been waiting for his result to move to the next class. Dawn

“We waited for long but the authorities mistook our patience, leaving us no option but violent protest to expedite the results,” he told .

Indeed, Secretary BISE Rawalpindi Rana Atta Mohammad assured before going to the New Town police station to report the rioting that the results would be made public on Dec 24.

A statement from the BISE soon after said “We have completed the rechecking process and the results would be announced on Dec 24. It takes time to manually prepare the entire result and we feel the anxiety of students. The board would soon satisfy the students”. It was noted that no political figure of the city intervened to calm down the angry students and diffuse the violent situation.

BISE officials charged that owners of private colleges were behind the protest but did not name any. Managements of private colleges rejected the charge, though they agreed that the delay in results had taken heavy toll on the enrolment of students in their colleges.

The Anti Corruption Establishment has been conducting criminal investigation against four key officers in BISE. They are under suspension and have secured pre-arrest bails from the courts of law.

Meanwhile, angry students manhandled the crew members of Dawn News and damaged its DSNG (Digital Satellite News Gathering) vehicle.

Dawn News technician Saqib Shah said that a group of students stopped the DSNG when it reached the BISE office at 6th Road. They complained the Dawn News team arrived late at the spot as they had informed all the news channels about the protest. Other news channels arrived there on time, but Dawn News team was late, they said. Later, harsh words were exchanged between the students and the DSNG's team. The students also manhandled the Dawn News team.

They started pelting the vehicle with stones and later attacked DSNG with batons. As a result, its front screen was smashed and the front side was also damaged.