Pak government trying to convert university into cantonment: BSO leader

By Malik Siraj

Quetta: The Balochistan University requires funds to improve its existing security plan in the wake of mounting threats faced by the country’s educational institutions.

University officials said, “Ours is perhaps the only university in the world where trains move regularly on the campus, making it impossible for the university administration to establish a wall around the railway track to minimise the risk of terrorist attacks.”

“We need additional funds, millions of rupees to upgrade the security of the university,” said another official.

A senior official, requesting anonymity, said the university administration had prepared a new security plan in the wake of twin suicide blasts at Islamabad’s International Islamic University.

“The government is trying to convert the university into a garrison under the pretext of restoring peace. We do not face any threat from outside. Frontier Corps are our major concern as they have rounded up many students in the past. They also beat up a professor,” Hamal Baloch, a Baloch Students Organisation leader, said.

Under the new security plan, the parking lot has been shifted outside the campus and no one is allowed to park his or her car inside the university. All faculty and students are required to display their identity cards.

“We have installed several CCTV cameras and raised the boundary wall and barbed wire has been fixed on it,” a university official said. However, there is still room for improvement, for which we need funds.”