LAHORE - The Higher Education Department has sought security plan from all the educational institutions of the province in the wake of Charsadda attack.
The source said the main objective of seeking security plans was for ensuring foolproof security of the educational institutions to avoid any untoward incident.
In this regard, Secretary Higher Education Department Irfan Elahi directed the officers of HED to collect details and other essential data about the internal security arrangements and number of security personnel available with all the universities and colleges, sources maintained.
They said that the secretary also sought suggestions and proposals from the administrations of educational institutions so that security arrangements could be made foolproof.
They said that the secretary HED also directed the officers to remain vigilant and pay surprise visits of different colleges and universities and take stern departmental action against the security personnel who were absent from duty without any intimation or negligent.
He also directed them to produce and initiate legal against an absentee Chief Security Officer of a local university in Lahore.
The sources said that following directions in this regard letters written instruction have been sent to all the heads of the educational institutions of the province. The secretary HED directed them to make new security plans of their institutions or revised old one and inform the higher authorities as soon as possible.
According to official source of different public sector universities and colleges, most of the education institutions have received security threats even before the terrorist attack on the Bacha Khan University and after that.
The sources in Punjab University said that the administration already has received 12 security threats from terrorist organizations. The university administration has already inform the authorities of HED and security agency about such threats.
In this regard, the Education Department also wrote letters to security agency for seeking help for the security of the educational institutions with giving them proposals and suggestion in order to make the security of all the educational institutes foolproof.
Meanwhile, the district administration held an important meeting in regard with security measures for educational institutions, hospitals and universities in Town Hall yesterday afternoon.
The meeting was jointly chaired by Commissioner Lahore Division Lahore Abdullah Khan Sunbal, District Coordination Officer Lahore Capt (r) Muhammad Usman, CCPO Lahore Amin Wains, DIG Operations Dr Haider Ashraf while it was attended by representative of public private schools, universities and medical superintendent of hospitals.
Commissioner Lahore, CCPO Lahore Police and DCO Lahore said that District Administration and Police had been carrying out security measures for educational institutions and hospitals of the provincial capital to avoid any untoward and terrorism incident and had been implementing security measures forcefully in all types of institution of the city.
They directed representatives of public/private schools and hospitals to strictly follow security SOPs." There must be installation of CCTV cameras, deployment of trained security guard and installation of wire on the boundary walls in all institutions.
“The entrance and exit of institution must be one along with properly operational metal detectors," they added. The DCO further said that if security measures as per SOPs were not adopted, the non cooperative institutions would be closed. He also gave a deadline of ten days for the accomplishment of all security measures.
Separately, the law enforcement agencies conducted a mock drill at Punjab University on Thursday.
The officials said that the purpose of the drill was to check security forces' responses and preparedness in the event of an emergency.
Punjab University Public Relations Officer Khurram Shahzad said university administration cooperated with security personnel to conduct the 'rehearsal'. Students were unaware of the drill, he said, many had been scared and panicked as the exercise took place.