By Fazal Khaliq
MINGORA: The devastating earthquake that hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Monday 26 October has caused damages to the building of the lone Government Girls Post Graduate College where majority of the portions are risky to be used.
Girls and faculty staff on Wednesday spent the entire day in the college lawn as they feared to enter rooms and take classes. Over 1600 girl students study in the college.
“We did not attend any class today as there are big cracks everywhere in the building caused by earthquake so we preferred to stay away from the classrooms as we are scared,” Nausheen Ahmad a student of BA in the college said.
She said students were scared to get into the classes due to the condition of the building. “Another earthquake can cause complete collapse to the damaged building,” she said, adding that the government must take immediate step to provide us an alternate facility so that we did not suffer as our exams are closers.
Talat Qamar, the principal of the college also said that when girls came to college and saw the destruction they were in panic.
“Students refused to go to any class as well the teachers and I also instructed them to stay away from the damaged blocks,” she told this scribe.
“Looking at the miserable condition of different blocks, I informed the district administration and secretary higher education at once. I don’t know what to do as we are already short of space,” she said.
Zehra Idrees a computer science teacher said that they could not put the students’ lives in threats by teaching them in the damaged classes.
Deputy Commissioner Swat Mehmood Aslam Wazir along with the XEN C&W visited the college to check the damages.
“Huge number of students study in the college and we don’t want to waste their education time but looking at some of the blocks which were damaged in the earthquake, I can’t allow them to study there,” he said.
He added that he would be able to take any decision after the engineers of C&W would give him final report. “I will also put request to government to issue funds for the minor repairs immediately so that the classes which are not much risky are made usable to the students,” he said.
