Pak shuts religious seminaries in southern Sindh due to rise in coronavirus cases

All the religious seminaries in Pakistan’s Southern Sindh province have been closed down due to the growing COVID-19 cases, an official said on Thursday.

The move came after the religious seminaries were allowed to operate even though the government late last month shut down all educational institutions till January due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The Sindh government has issued an order, effective immediately, to shut down all religious seminaries in the province due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the official from the Sindh Religious Affairs Department said.

The government has given direction that whatever measures it undertakes but the order must be implemented immediately.

Division commissioners, deputy commissioners, assistant commissioners and other law enforcement agencies have also granted the authority to take legal action against anyone found contravening the order.

Religious seminaries (madrasahs) operate under a different education system from the usual secondary system and also have a syllabus based around Islamic teaching and studies.

Sindh has been recording a high percentage of cases and deaths in the second wave of the pandemic and on Wednesday the commissioner of Karachi also announced lockdown in several localities which had seen a spike in COVID-19 cases in the last few days.

Pakistan has recorded 9,080 deaths due to the virus since its outbreak early this year with confirmed cases close to 450,000.