KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Saturday ordered immediate reopening of the Aisha Bawany Government College, suspending the order of a subordinate court that had ordered its sealing.

On Friday, the Aisha Bawany Trust had closed off and sealed the college building after obtaining an order from the local court.

The college administration through the Sindh advocate general moved against the trust’s action to seek a restraining order against the closure of one of the country’s oldest colleges.

‘Land grabbers trying to demolish the college and build a marriage hall or a commercial building on its land’

Around 3,000 very disturbed and worried students of Aisha Bawany College were seen studying outside it in protest on Saturday after its closure by its board of trustees.

The trustees of the college had approached the court over confusion of its ownership and had proceeded to seal the college building in the meantime as the court ruled in their favour. But taking notice of the future of its students, the college administration again reached the Sindh High Court, which issued a stay order on the sealing of the college.

The director of colleges, Karachi, Mohammad Mashooque, stepped in to inform the media that the college trustees were not even who they said they were but “land grabbers” hoping to demolish the college and build a marriage hall or a commercial building on its land on main Sharea Faisal.

He further said that the original trustees were no longer around as they had all passed away and the ones claiming to be on the trustees’ board now “belonged to the land mafia”.

Aisha Bawany College is among Pakistan’s oldest educational institutions which were nationalised by the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto government in the early 1970s. After Mr Bhutto many such colleges were returned to their trustees, creating confusion regarding their ownership between the trustees and the government.

On Saturday, despite the court’s stay order the trustees tried to reach the building and demolish a portion of it.

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2017