A day after the roof collapse at Al-Khair Education System in Peshawar, the provincial government moved from rescue to reckoning. At a press conference on Friday, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Faisal Karim Kundi announced Rs1 million in compensation for each bereaved family and a four-day deadline for the investigation, promising scrutiny of everyone from the school owner to the officials who issued the building’s No Objection Certificate. Province-wide audits of private and government schools were ordered, with a blunt warning: if any incident happens after the audit, the auditor will be punished.
What the governor promised on Friday
Kundi said each bereaved family would receive Rs1 million, while injured students would receive Rs200,000 to Rs300,000 (outlets differed: Dawn reported Rs300,000, while Samaa, the Express Tribune and Kashmir English reported Rs200,000). He announced that the investigation would be completed within four days and legal action against those found responsible would follow within 15 days.
The governor struck an unusually sharp tone about official inquiries. He said the government would not limit itself to just another inquiry, criticising past practice in which committees were formed but their work amounted to little more than photo sessions. The investigation would examine the responsibility of everyone involved, from the school owner to the relevant government departments. He confirmed the school owner had been arrested and that action would be taken against others involved.
Two probes running in parallel
The collapse is now being investigated on more than one track. Late Thursday night, the KP Human Resources Department notified a fact-finding inquiry committee headed by Transport Department Secretary Zubair Ahmed, with C&W chief engineer Jamshid Ali Khan as a member, directed to establish the sequence of events. Separately, the chief secretary formed a two-member inquiry committee with a seven-day deadline to examine structural integrity, construction quality and possible negligence. This sits alongside the three-day district-level inspection order that followed the FIR that named the school owners, shareholders and contractor under Sections 322, 148 and 149 of the Pakistan Penal Code.
The governor said the first step of the investigation would be to determine who issued the No Objection Certificate to the school, widening the blame beyond the owner to the officials who certified a structure described as dilapidated and unfit.
The preliminary report: rainfall warnings and a temporary fix
A preliminary report prepared by Rescue 1122 and the district administration, and carried by the Express Tribune, points to alleged serious negligence by the school administration. According to the report, the upper-floor roof had deteriorated after recent rainfall and students had alerted the owner to its poor condition. Instead of proper repairs, the administration allegedly reinforced the roof temporarily and called students back to school.
The owner blamed the week’s rains for weakening the roof, according to police. Peshawar police chief Mian Saeed said the building had a weak structure and that the roof was overloaded with additional construction, a finding that directly conflicts with the rain defence.
Crowdsourced inspections spread across the province
The tragedy has also triggered an unusual public-reporting mechanism. Samar Haroon Bilour, adviser to the KP governor on information and public relations, issued a televised message urging residents to share videos of schools in poor condition in their areas. She said such videos had been arriving through WhatsApp, Facebook and X since Thursday, and that an inspection team had already been dispatched to Mardan’s Gumbat village after one such video.
The governor’s audit order covers both sides of the schooling system: building audit reports of all private schools within four to five days, and reports on government schools within 15 days. Under the district order, inspection committees will classify each building as safe, in need of repairs or potentially unsafe, and can recommend suspending the use of any building that poses an immediate risk.
What the next four days must answer
The death toll remained unsettled across outlets on Friday. Dawn’s newspaper report, based on Lady Reading Hospital’s list, put it at 30 students and one teacher, while the hospital spokesperson quoted by Samaa, The Nation, Business Recorder and Arab News PK said 35 people (34 students and one teacher) had died.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan called the collapse “not an accident but a preventable failure”, recalling the June collapse of a private tuition centre’s roof in Lahore that killed 14 students, the pattern the governor acknowledged when he warned auditors would be held personally responsible for future incidents.
The four-day probe deadline, the seven-day committee report and the 15-day audit of government schools now form a calendar of accountability. Whether the NOC investigation actually reaches the officials who certified the building will determine if this inquiry ends differently from the ones the governor dismissed as photo sessions. For continuing updates, follow PakMirror’s national news coverage.
