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Authorities in Pakistan’s most populous province ordered all educational institutes shut for Friday, as students stage protests after reports of a college campus rape spread online.
The closure, which encompasses playgroups to universities, will affect about 26 million children in addition to adult learners in eastern Punjab province.
Protests broke out in the provincial capital Lahore after social media reports spread that a woman student was raped in the basement of a Punjab College for Women campus over the weekend.
The police, college and provincial government have said that no victim has come forward and have blamed misinformation online.
The protests have since spread to campuses across Lahore as well as the city of Rawalpindi, which neighbours the capital Islamabad, with students accusing authorities of a cover-up.
Punjab’s education and interior departments ordered the closure of all educational departments in three separate notifications late Thursday, without mentioning the alleged rape or protests.
The provincial interior department has also banned gatherings on Friday and Saturday.
“They’ve bribed the government and top officials to cover up the truth, just to protect their institution’s reputation,” claimed one 19-year-old student protesting Thursday in Rawalpindi.
“This is not fake news -— it’s 100 percent real,” added Inshai, another 19-year-old demonstrator, who did not want to give her last name.
The protests reflect a deep concern among Pakistani students over safety, harassment, and sexual assault against women at colleges, as well as mistrust in authorities.
The demonstrators, who are mostly male students, have smashed windows and burned school buses at campuses in Lahore. Students have also clashed with police at many of the demonstrations.
Police arrested a security guard who was identified in online posts but said no victim had come forward and that they had not been able to verify the rape allegation.
“The incident does not exist,” Arif Chaudry, the Lahore director of the private Punjab Group of Colleges that runs the women’s college, said at a press conference on Wednesday.
“I will resign and I will leave this profession and stand with the students if the incident took place.”
The chief minister of the province, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, said that those who spread the false posts would be punished.
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