ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of students on Monday staged protests over a reported rape of a student at a college in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore and forced closure of one of the campuses, with police and provincial government officials denying the incident.
The incident was first reported on social media over the weekend, with varying accounts stating the rape took place on Thursday or Friday evening in the basement of a Punjab College for Women campus.
However, the police on Monday said no victim had come forward to file a complaint and the college dismissed the allegations as “false.”
“The records of all the CCTV cameras in the campus have been checked,” Faisal Kamran, a senior Lahore police official, said at a press conference. “Till now, we are unable to verify the incident.”
“The alleged victim has not been identified as yet,” he said, adding the police had also checked hospital records.
The Punjab College for Women said in a post on Instagram that no such incident had been reported to police and false information was being spread online.
The police, however, took a security guard into custody who was identified online.
“The accused guard has been in custody since yesterday, but no girl or incident has been reported yet,” Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari said on X.
“If anyone has any confirmed information about this incident, please share.”
— With additional input from AFP
Pakistani students force closure of Lahore college campus amid protests over rape reports
https://arab.news/j5md7
Pakistani students force closure of Lahore college campus amid protests over rape reports
- Police said no victim had come forward to file a complaint and the college dismissed the allegations as ‘false’
- Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari urges people to share if they had confirmed information about incident
Air pollution cuts average Pakistani life expectancy by 3.9 years — report
- Pakistan’s first city-level emissions mapping links smog to transport and industry
- Lahore residents could gain up to 5.8 years of life with cleaner air, report says
ISLAMABAD: Air pollution is shortening the lives of millions of Pakistanis, reducing average life expectancy by almost four years and up to six years in smog-choked cities like Lahore, according to a new national assessment.
The study, titled Unveiling Pakistan’s Air Pollution and published by the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative (PAQI) this week, includes Pakistan’s first multi-sector, city-level emissions mapping, ending years of speculation over what drives the country’s chronic smog.
Researchers identified transport, industry, brick kilns, power generation and crop burning as Pakistan’s largest contributors of PM2.5, which is hazardous fine particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers wide that penetrates deep into the lungs and bloodstream, increasing the risk of heart disease, lung cancer and early death. The dominant sources varied by city, giving a data-based picture of pollution patterns for the first time.
The report calls particulate pollution the country’s most damaging environmental hazard.
“Pollution reduces the life expectancy of an average Pakistani by 3.9 years,” the report states, noting the impact is more severe than food insecurity.
“Particulate pollution is the greatest external threat to life expectancy in the country. While particulate pollution takes 3.3 years off the life expectancy of an average Pakistani resident, child and maternal malnutrition, and dietary risks reduce life expectancy by 2.4 and 2.1 years, respectively.”
The report findings suggest major health gains would follow even modest pollution cuts.
“In Lahore, the country’s second most populous city, residents could gain 5.8 years of life expectancy,” it notes, if air quality met global safety standards.
Beyond health, the study frames smog as an economic and governance crisis. Researchers argue that Pakistan’s response has focused on optics like temporary shutdowns, anti-smog “sprays” and road-washing rather than long-term emissions control, vehicle regulation or industrial monitoring.
The assessment characterises pollution as an invisible national burden:
“Poor air quality is Pakistan’s most universal tax, paid by every child and elder with every breath.”
Pakistan regularly ranks among the world’s most polluted countries, with Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Faisalabad repeatedly classified as high-toxicity zones during winter. The new mapping highlights how industrial output, diesel trucking, unregulated kiln firing, and seasonal stubble burning drive smog cycles, knowledge the authors say should guide enforceable policy rather than short-term bans.
The report concludes that reducing PM2.5 remains the single most powerful health intervention available to Pakistan, with improvements likely to deliver life expectancy gains faster than nutrition, sanitation or infectious-disease efforts.
