RAWALPINDI, April 19: As many as 2,000 expensive laptops are ready to be handed out to talented students invited from all over the country by Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif in Islamabad on Friday but Rawalpindi administration proved a poor host on Thursday in facilitating their overnight stay in Rawalpindi, it has been learnt.

The students who arrived in the garrison city from across the country including Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) for receiving official acknowledgment of their outstanding performance in various examinations, faced much trouble as majority of girls and boys had to sleep without mattresses.

They were lodged at government schools in Rawalpindi and a single room was reserved for as many as 30 to 40 students that some students told this reporter looked more like an animal farm than accommodation for humans.

Students complained of unavailability of ironing facility making it impossible for them to wear a tidy look while receiving the token of appreciation from the dignitaries. As these students were required to dress properly for getting the prize of their hard work from the CM at Jinnah Convention Center, a majority of them was seen wandering in markets in search of laundry shops to get their ceremonial clothes ironed.

Government Postgraduate College Asghar Mall was the place of hospitality and stay for male students from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Sindh and Balochistan while Government Postgraduate College for Women 6th Road was reserved for female students from these provinces.

As many as 258 female students from AJK had a stay in Girls Degree College Dhoke Kala Khan in its 10 rooms where 25 students were grouped in one room with no arrangement of drinking water and ironing facility for Friday’s ceremony.

District Officer Monitoring, Saima Younas was the official host of girl students there and PML-N MNA Hanif Abbasi was supposed to join them for dinner but the guests’ long wait bore no fruit as the lawmaker denied them the honour by remaining absent.

The officer incharge at the college declined when asked for permission to talk to the girl students arguing that approval of the DCO was a must before interviewing the guests.

“They (hosts) have directed us not to talk to the media,” a student standing nearby told this reporter when she was asked about their stay in the college.

In contrast, girls and boys from Punjab were lucky to get a better place for the stay at Haji Camp and Golra Mor where rooms were enough to accommodate them and they felt privileged as PML-N MNA Malik Ibrar joined them for the dinner too.

However, District Coordination Officer Saqib Zafar saw no discriminatory treatment and said students from Punjab were given accommodation at Haji Camp because it was easy to accommodate them at the venue owing to their great numbers.

Almost every officer of Rawalpindi including its DCO and Commissioner Imdadullah Bosal kept busy the whole day in receiving the students and ensuring proper lodging arrangements for them but, at the end of the day, many of the guests had to pass a sleepless night without mattresses.

“There are not even cloth hangers for saving the dresses from wrinkles that we would put on for the function, what to talk of ironing facility,” a student from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa told Dawn requesting not to be named fearing he might be denied a laptop.

“The politicians delivered speeches and praised the Punjab government for giving laptops to students of Sindh, KP and Balochistan but there is no sign of hospitality here,” another student who had come from Zhob district of Balochistan complained.

However, PML-N MNA Hanif Abbasi told Dawn it was impossible to arrange beds for 2,000 people adding that students were satisfied with the arrangements and the administration was doing its best to facilitate them.

To a question that when his party could arrange thousands of chairs, banners and other essential items for political gatherings, why it failed to make the students stay comfortable, he repeated they had extended the best possible hospitality to the students.