The Pakistani government has decided to shut all federally run schools, colleges, and universities—more than 400 in all—until October 25, following Tuesday's deadly suicide-bomb attacks on International Islamic University, near Islamabad, the capital.
Many private schools and colleges have also decided to close temporarily.
Two suicide bombers attacked a cafeteria and a faculty building at the university. Exact casualty figures vary, with some newspapers reporting as many as eight students dead and 30 students injured.
"A large number of women's cafeteria and faculty members were present at the time of the blasts," one unnamed police official told The Asian Age, a newspaper. "Classes were also in session on the campus when the blasts occurred. At this time we cannot identify the victims, but some of the injured students are foreigners."
International Islamic University enrolls 18,000 students, including about 2,000 international students, many of whom are from China, the Associated Press reported. While the university is a seat of Islamic learning, most students also take secular courses like management science or computer studies, the news agency said.
The attacks came a few days after the Pakistani military conducted a series of assaults on a Taliban stronghold in South Waziristan, an insurgent region of the country. Authorities believe that a recent series of bombings and assaults in Pakistan are the work of Al Qaeda and Taliban militants.
Islamabad's residents have repeatedly asked the government to move law-enforcement agencies that are located near schools and colleges away from the campuses to keep students and faculty members out of harm's way, reported the Daily Times newspaper.
Meanwhile, major educational institutions in the city are without adequate security arrangements and lack even properly armed security guards, the newspaper said. For instance, Punjab University has only 160 guards for 30,000 students, and the Government College University said it has only a few armed guards for its 6,000-student campus.
Rehman Malik, Pakistan's interior minister, told The Nation that attacks on the university were not a security lapse, noting that the campus is 20 kilometers away from the city. On Tuesday, Mr. Malik was the target of stone pelting by angry students at the university, the newspaper said. The minister escaped unhurt as he was in a bulletproof vehicle.
Comments
1. 11274501 - October 22, 2009 at 12:35 pm
International Education is the primary threat to the Taliban. It now appears to be one of their main targets. To win against this kind of terror, we need to protect our greatest point of leverage for positive change - education.