VEHARI: The building of a girls’ primary school at village Shada Luddan has allegedly been converted into a cattle shed by some influential people.

The locals said that after years of negligence by the education department, the people and the drug pushers took away windows and doors of the building. All the walls and roofs of classrooms are badly cracked and building was in a shambles.

Taking advantage of the situation, some influential people of the village started using the building as a shed for their cattle a year back and they were keeping their cattle, including buffaloes, cows, goats and donkeys, in it besides storing their fodder in the classrooms.

The village is situated in the constituency (NA 163) of Daultana and Khakwani families.

The social and political circles of Luddan have expressed grave concern over the situation and the negligence of the education department. They urged Chief Minister Usman Buzdar to look into the matter and make efforts to retrieve the school building.

When contacted, education deputy district officer Aslam Sumpal said the department knew the real situation of the building.

“The school was closed due to low attendance of students and it was merge with the nearby primary school at village Ali Din some months back.”

Mr Aslam denied that any group of people had taken hold of the building. He said the school building was being used as literacy school with about 50 students studying there while the education dept had also set up an office in a room. He said the animals were being tied outside the school, not on the school premises.

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2019