Today Pakistan’s Sindh government ruled that use of mobile phones but both students and staff members should be banned on school campuses throughout the province. The decision comes in the wake of the deadly terrorist attack on a school in Peshawar last month.
Mobile phone use banned at Sindh schools
Dawn.com reported on the ban, citing unnamed sources. The ban on mobile phone use will reportedly go into effect at all schools in Sindh. The website also reports that lawmakers plan to implement a number of other protective measures at schools in the province. One of the measures is preventing trucks, rickshaws and other vehicles from parking close to school campuses.
The measures are aimed at improving security at schools in Pakistan.
Measures put in place after Peshawar attack
Today schools in the country reopened almost a month after the deadly terrorist attack which claimed more than 150 lives at a school in Peshawar. Gunmen with the TTP took 500 students hostage, killing dozens of them right in front of their classmates. People from around the world changed their social media profile photos to express solidarity with the victims and their families.
Most of those who died in the attack were children. When the nation’s schools reopened today, officials supplied heavy security. Pakistan’s government required a number of security enhancements to be carried out before lawmakers would allow schools to reopen.
NBC News reports that Pakistani army chief Raheel Sharif and his wife went to the school where the massacre happened to greet the returning students and their parents. The families of the victims were invited to a special memorial ceremony, although some parents did not attend because they are still too traumatized by the loss of their children in the bloodbath. Students at the school will attend a special week of classes aimed at helping them deal with the trauma of the attack.
The Pakistani Taliban has threatened to attack schools again if the government didn’t halt its military offensive against the militant group in the nation’s tribal areas.
