News Mania / Piyal Chatterjee / 18th October 2024
Following the most violent student protests in Pakistan’s history over the alleged rape of a student on campus, authorities closed schools, colleges, and institutions in the eastern Punjab province on Friday, according to officials. Participants in the demonstrations, which have been going on since Monday, claim that a security guard on the campus of a private college chain in Lahore sexually assaulted a female student.
Although hundreds of students who were demonstrating called for the government to take action, officials claim they have not yet discovered any proof of the occurrence, with some accusing social media of disseminating false information. Since Monday, protestors have clashed with law enforcement as they have rampaged across many of the campuses, injuring dozens of students, police, and academic staff.
All educational institutions will remain closed on Friday, an order issued by the Punjab government and seen by Reuters, said. No official reason was given. “We have investigated it thoroughly – no such incident happened,” Lahore police chief Bilal Saddique Kamyana told a news conference on Thursday, adding that no complainant had come forward on the matter.Despite official denials, anger has grown in Pakistan, particularly on social media.
In a press conference, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz said that the incident was the product of false information propagated by Imran Khan’s party, a political adversary who has been imprisoned since last year. Nawaz, the daughter of three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif, claimed that fake information had been disseminated by several video bloggers and that “doctored images” of the putative victim had been circulated on social media by several accounts, including those connected to Khan’s party.
