NEW DELHI:
The Islamabad International Medical College has issued guidelines for their male and female students, asking girls to wear hijab and boys to wear white prayer caps while maintaining a distance of two metres from the opposite sex at all times on Valentine’s Day, Friday Times reported.
The college reportedly issued circular forbidding students from partaking in Valentine’s Day and associated “activities which lead the youth towards the wrong path”, the report said.
The protocol states: “All female students should be seen with properly-covered heads, necks and chests with a hijab according to the university dress code. All male students are strictly ordered to wear white prayer caps.”
The circular further warns that twenty staff from the school administration will be patrolling the campus to catch Valentine’s Day violations.
Those caught breaking the rules will be fined 5,000 PKR, which will be donated to a worthy cause, the report said.
People on Twitter had thoughts about the notice, with some incredulous at the rules and others supporting the school’s guidelines.
“This is weird. If someone wants to not celebrate valentine’s (because) they’re a Muslim, more power to them, but everyone practices their religion differently and imposing (your) beliefs on someone else is pure wrong,” said one post.
Earlier, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had waded into another controversy, by commenting on the hijab row in India’s Karnataka state.
“Depriving Muslim girls of education is a grave violation of fundamental human rights. To deny anyone this fundamental right & terrorise them for wearing a hijab is absolutely oppressive. The world must realise this is part of the Indian state plan of ghettoisation of Muslims”, he said in a tweet. IANS