Authorities in Pakistan’s most populous province ordered all educational facilities to close on Friday ( October 18 ) as students protested after reports of a college campus rape were reported online.
The closing, which encompasses preschools to universities, does affect about 26 million kids in addition to adult trainees in eastern Punjab state.
After social media reports about a female student being raped over the weekend at a Punjab College for Women college, protests broke out in the municipal capital Lahore.
No victims have been identified, according to the authorities, college, and municipal governments, and misinformation has been spread online.
Students are accusing officials of a cover-up and the town of Rawalpindi, which is close to the capital Islamabad, have since seen the protests spread to schools across Lahore as well as the town of Rawalpindi, where they are located.
Top Rawalpindi police agent Syed Khalid Mehmood Hamdani reported on Friday that 380 people had been detained for vandalism and arson at rallies the day before, and that the investigation was raging.
” We may record down people from cultural media”, he told AFP.
Late on Thursday, Punjab’s inside and training departments issued three distinct notifications ordering the shutdown of all education departments, without mentioning the alleged assault or protests.
Additionally, gatherings on Friday and Saturday are prohibited by the municipal inside section.
” They’ve bribed the government and major authorities to cover up the truth, only to protect their university’s popularity”, claimed one 19-year-old scholar protesting on Thursday in Rawalpindi.