PAKISTAN UNIVERSITY BANS BOYS AND GIRLS SITTING

Swat (HRNW): University of Swat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan on Friday issued a notification banning its male students and female students from mingling together.In a much conservative and controversial move, the University of Swat banned all the opposite gender students to sit or walk together within the campus limits.

According a notice pasted on the notice board of the university, the students are warned that a fine ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 5,000 will be imposed in case of violation.

Moreover, the parents will also be called for an emergency meeting by the university administration, according to the document signed by Chief Proctor Hazrat Bilal.

The University of Swat is a public sector university. The main campus of the university is situated in Saidu Sharif, 2 km away from main city Mingora, Swat Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan.

According to the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, the university was ranked at 124 in 2012.

In a much similar move in past, Pakistan’s top university National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) had made it mandatory for female students to wear ‘dupatta’ and put a ban on wearing ‘jeans’ in the premises of the university which is located in the heart of capital city Islamabad.

In September 2013, nearly a dozen students in NUST were also fined because of different reasons, including smoking and eating in labs.

Despite several challenges, Swat has remained a centre of education since long and even during the days when militants dominated the valley students both boys and girls managed to continue their education.

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate, also hails from Swat Valley, where the local Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. Her family runs a chain of schools in the region.