Authorities in Pakistan’s most populous province ordered all education institutes shut for yesterday as students protested after reports of a college campus rape spread online.
The closure, which encompasses playgroups to universities, affected about 26 million children in addition to adult learners in Punjab Province.
Protests broke out in the provincial capital, Lahore, after social media reports spread that a female student was raped in the basement of a Punjab College for Women campus over the weekend.
Photo: AP
The police, college and provincial government have said that no victim has come forward and blame misinformation online.
The protests have since spread to campuses across Lahore as well as Rawalpindi, which neighbours the capital, Islamabad, with students accusing authorities of a cover-up.
Senior Rawalpindi police officer Syed Khalid Mehmood Hamdani yesterday said that 380 people had been arrested over vandalism and arson at protests in the city the previous day and investigations were continuing.
“We will track down people from social media,” he told reporters.
Punjab’s education and interior departments ordered the closure of all education departments in three separate notifications late on Thursday, without mentioning the alleged rape or protests.
The provincial interior department has also banned gatherings yesterday and today.
“They’ve bribed the government and top officials to cover up the truth, just to protect their institution’s reputation,” a 19-year-old student protesting in Rawalpindi on Thursday said.
The protests reflect a deep concern among Pakistani students over safety, harassment and sexual assault against women at colleges, as well as mistrust in authorities.
The demonstrators have smashed windows and burned school buses at campuses in Lahore. Students have also clashed with police at many of the demonstrations.
Police arrested a security guard who was identified in online posts, but said that no victim had come forward and that they had not been able to verify the rape allegation.
“The incident does not exist,” Arif Chaudry, the Lahore director of the private Punjab Group of Colleges that runs the women’s college, said at a news conference on Wednesday. “I will resign and I will leave this profession and stand with the students if the incident took place.”
Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif said that those who spread the false posts would be punished.
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