PESHAWAR: The closure of Cadet College, Razmak in North Waziristan has put the future of around 430 students at stake, as the government is still indecisive about reopening the prestigious institution.
The college was closed in haste by the government in June last and the students and teachers were escorted out the restive tribal area, only to be kidnapped by militants and then freed through the intervention of a jirga.
Government and military officials at that time had argued that the students and teachers of Cadet College, Razmak were not safe as militants affiliated with Baitullah Mahsud could target the government and army installations in the area after a military operation was launched against them in the adjoining South Waziristan.
The picturesque Razmak Valley is located on the border between South and North Waziristan while the Cadet College is located in a military base. Keeping in view previous attack on the college by the militants from nearby Makeen town in South Waziristan in 2007 in which a science laboratory was damaged, the military authorities feared the militants could target it again. Hence, they had decided to close the college and asked students and the teachers to leave the area.
As no proper security arrangements were put in place for their security, Baitullah men kidnapped some of the students and teachers near the Bakkakhel area of FR Bannu. The Torikhel people, who live in Razmak area, later raised a 300-member tribal lashkar that raided villages in the nearby South Waziristan and recovered vehicles and luggage of the kidnapped students. Led by Abdul Halim Khan, a noted Torikhel elder-cum-militant commander of Hafiz Gul Bahadur-led militants, the lashkar warned Baitullah to release the students and their teachers or face the consequences.
The pressure worked and Baitullah decided to release the students and even met the cadets. Since June, the college has been closed and an entire academic year of the students could be lost. Parents of the cadets are seriously worried about uncertain future of their children.
A retired subedar of the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC), Mohammad Iqbal is one among several other concerned fathers. He said he was hoping for a bright future for his son after getting him admitted to the Cadet College but was now a worried man as there is no indication when the college would reopen.
Sources told The News that NWFP Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani had constituted a committee to select a safe place where the college could be temporarily set up. One of the committee members, who wished not to named, told The News that they inspected three places including the newly constructed building of Government Degree College at Shankar in Mardan, Elementary College Charsadda and another building in Swabi district for accommodating the college temporarily. He said the committee was keeping its work secret as the Torikhel tribe was opposing shifting of the college from Razmak.
The member said the committee had sent its recommendations to the governor and was waiting for approval of one of the buildings to start classes. He said only three chapters of the course had been taught to the students of Grade VIII and IX while second-year classes were yet to be started.
The governor had ordered an inquiry against the officials who closed the college and then shifted the students to Peshawar without proper security. But neither an inquiry was conducted nor any official was punished for negligence.
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