SMI closed for three days

Staff Report

KARACHI: All practical examinations for 9th and 10th classes at the Sindh Madressatul Islam (SMI) school have been postponed for three days following a bomb blast in a mosque next to the SMI during Friday prayers.

At least 14 people died in the bomb blast.

Federal minister of education Zubaida Jalal, who is also chairperson of the board of governors of the school, in consultation with the principal of the school, Mohammed Ali Shaikh, ordered the closure of the institution up to Monday, May 10.

According to a spokesman for the school, all students of the school and college (there are a school and a college at the SMI) had left for their homes half an hour before the bomb explosion.

He said higher authorities of the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi visited SM Science College, which is close to the SMI, on Friday after the bomb blast. They are considering shifting the Intermediate examination centre from SM Science College.

The Sindh Madressatul Islam is ranked as one of the oldest Muslim educational institutions of South Asia. Khan Bahadur Hassanally Effendi established it in 1885, 10 years after Sir Syed Ahmed Khan established the Anglo-Oriental Mohammedan College at Aligarh.

Besides Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, former Sindh chief minister Ayub Khuhro, Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto, former chief justice of Pakistan Justice Syed Sajjad Ali Shah, eminent political figure of the province Sir Abdullah Haroon, former test cricketer Hanif Mohammed and a large number of prominent personalities from different walks of life had their early education at this prestigious institution. The Quaid-e-Azam studied at the SMI from 1887 to 1892. He bequeathed one-third of his property to the SMI.

The school works under the administrative control of the federal ministry of education, which has constituted a board of governors and two constituent committees, an executive committee and a finance and planning committee, to administer the affairs of the institution.

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