CHITRAL: Authorities have found no clue to the computers and electronic goods stolen from a laboratory of the Government Girls Higher Secondary School, Shiaqotek, Lower Chitral, two months ago.

In a complaint lodged with the city police station on Aug 7 for the registration of a robbery case, school principal Asifa Kanwal claimed that 13 desktop computers along with an 55-inch electronic screen provided by an international NGO had gone missing from the computer lab.

SP (investigation) Abdus Sattar told Dawn that the theft incident was of queer nature as locks of lab doors and shelves weren’t broken and instead, they’re opened with keys kept in the drawers of the principal’s office.

He said it appeared to be an inside job as the locks of the principal’s office and drawers were reported to be “unopened showing the robber and his accomplice” belonged to the school and knew the location of keys.

The SP said the robbers, to conceal their identity, took away the digital video recorder of the CCTV, which covered the premises of the school from the principal’s office.

He said fingerprints of the school’s male employees were sent to the Nadra headquarters for examination but they didn’t match with those found on the keys, doors and other objects.

Mr Sattar said the matter was being probed from “new angles” and that all employees of the school would be quizzed.

The elementary and secondary education department has yet to take any punitive action against staff members of the school over the theft.

An official of the district education office (female) told Dawn that a letter was sent to authorities for inquiry soon after the theft.

She said the incident was the first of its kind in the district as all door and shelf locks were opened with the help of their keys.

“We [education office] have fulfilled our responsibility by reporting the matter to the police as well as authorities,” she said.

Published in Dawn, October 3rd, 2023