THIS refers to the report ‘Fata students end hunger strike after talks with governor’ (April 5).

It was a matter of relief that the standoff came to an end amicably for which both sides deserve appreciation. One hopes that the promises made to the students will be kept sincerely and due action will soon follow.

A group of students from the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) had been protesting for the last several weeks and staging a sit-in in front of the Governor House in Lahore. Some of them had been on a hunger strike.

The basic demand of the protesting students was the restoration of scholarship seats that had been reserved for the ex-Fata students under a memorandum of understanding signed between the Punjab government and the Islamia University, Bahawalpur.

Unfortunately, for admission to the spring semester this year, the university violated the agreement. The erstwhile Fata is already a war-torn territory and students of the region have lost their future in successive military operations.

The state of education affairs in the region is poor, to say the least, for there is not a single university there. These reserved seats represented the only hope for the poor ex-Fata students. The protest was a result of earlier inaction by the relevant authorities in terms of satisfactory measures to redress their grievance.

It is good to know that the protest has ended because, one, it bodes well for the future of the youth, and, two, in the prevailing Covid pandemic, the lives of the protesting students were in danger.

Covid has already spoiled much of the academic life of students, while the earlier decision by the university had made matters worse.

Shahid Hussain Mehsud
Dera Ismail Khan

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2021