Peshawar massacre: No one to protect, teachers now take up arms

Peshawar, Jan 28: After the gory Dec 16 Peshawar attack left the world dumb-founded, the Pakistani administration decided to assign more security to its schools.

The the height of the barricade around the schools were heightened and additional security measures like barbed wires on top of the walls were installed.

On the hindside, they had to deal with a lack of security forces who could guard the schools and other educational institutions. The solution? The government is training the school teachers to fire arms in emergency. Teachers have now been put on a 2-day training to learn loading and firing a gun.

Atif Khan, provincial education minister for the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said,"Carrying firearms for every teacher is not obligatory, but all those who want to carry firearms to schools willingly will be provided with permits."

Provincial Information Minister Mushtaq Ghani rued,"The number of police in the province is not enough to guard 35,000 schools, colleges and universities -- that's why we have allowed teachers to carry firearms."

Mohammad Latif, a trainer at police headquarters in Peshawar said,"It's a two-day course. We are training them on gun handling and also on (the) procedure of using it."

While this is an easy solution for many, there are others who believe that this is against the ethics of being a school teacher.

Malik Khalid Khan, the president of the Private Schools Teachers Association, for instance said,"How is it possible to teach students in a class... holding a gun in one hand and a pen in another?"

He further said,"It's not our job, our job is to teach them books. A teacher holding a gun in the class will have very negative affect on his students. the government should hire more police if they are short of numbers."

Heavily armed terrorists barged into an Army school in Peshawar and killed 150 people, 132 of them being children.

OneIndia News