PESHAWAR: The students residing in different private hostels in Peshawar have expressed concern over the deadline given by the local administrations for vacating their rooms and warned that they would block roads if the deadline was not withdrawn.

“We are students and cannot afford to live in hotels. If the government forced us to vacate the hostels by its deadline, which is today (Monday), the students of 530 private hostels in Peshawar will come to the streets,” warned Abdu Hurira Mehsud, president of the Students Hostels Union, while speaking at a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club here on Sunday.

He said that the government had failed to accommodate them in the government-run hostels, forcing them to stay at private hostels to complete their studies.

Flanked by other office-bearers of the students union, Mr Mehsud said that police on Jan 16 manhandled them and forced them to vacate the hostels for unknown reasons. Due to forced eviction, he said many students could not appear in their examinations and some of them had lost laptops and other valuable items.

The action, he said was taken at the orders of the Peshawar Municipal Corporation on the pretext that the area was commercial and couldn’t be used for residential purposes.

Mr Mehsud said that the municipal corporation was also charging Rs5,000 per power generator in each hostel.

Published in Dawn January 19th , 2015

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