The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government decided to allow employees of all educational institutions, including teachers, to carry licensed arms on the premises to respond fittingly in case of a terrorist attack.
“The provincial cabinet has decided to allow teachers and other staff members to keep their licensed weapons with them so that in case of any eventuality they could engage attackers for initial five to 10 minutes before personnel of law-enforcement agencies will show up to respond to the attack,” provincial information minister Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani told reporters after the cabinet meeting.
Ghani said the cabinet, which met with Chief Minister Pervez Khattak in the chair, took several decisions for ensuring foolproof security at educational institutions in the province.
He said educational institutions had been told not to reopen campuses unless they fully carried out the government’s security guidelines.
“Strict action will be taken against all those schools, which reopened without taking the suggested security measures, including installation of CCTV cameras, deployment of more guards, and the fixing of barbed or razor wires on boundary walls,” he said.
According to him, the cabinet eulogised the sacrifices of the Army Public School Peshawar students and staff members and directed the education department to inform it about the top government schools so that they could be named after those who were killed in the Dec 16 attack.
Ghani admitted that there were only 65,000 policemen in the province and it was impossible for them to provide security to every school and therefore, the government had opted for community policing.
“We have asked educational institutions to hire services of retired personnel of armed forces from within the community,” he said.
He said in the morning, Chief Minister Pervez Khattak along with him and elementary education minister visited several schools in the city and checked security arrangements.
The minister said the chief minister had directed all ministers and MPAs to visit schools in their respective areas to ensure that the security standard operating procedures are strictly followed.
The minister said masterminds behind the Army Public School Peshawar attack were hiding in Afghanistan and therefore, Islamabad should ensure that Kabul arrest them and hand them over to it otherwise it should take steps for catching them on Afghan soil.
He said the government would send cases to the special military courts to be set up in the province in accordance with the constitutional amendment passed by parliament.
Ghani said the existing judicial system was unable to cope with the situation and therefore, it was expected that the special courts would decide cases of terrorism expeditiously.
Very good and sensible decision by the government. Sindh government should also immediately lift the ban on carrying licensed firearms