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Pak court asks Sindh censor board to reconsider screening of award-winning film on 'ghost schools'
Pak court asks Sindh censor board to reconsider screening of award-winning film on 'ghost schools'
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Karachi, A Pakistani court has directed a provincial film censor board to reconsider its decision to deny screening certification to an award-winning documentary on the problem of 'ghost schools' in the Sindh province.
The issue of ghost schools is well known in Sindh, where thousands of schools exist only on paper, but regular salaries are issued for the teaching staff of the schools.
In an order issued on Wednesday, a two-judge constitutional bench of the Sindh High Court headed by Justice Yousuf Ali Sayeed directed the Sindh Board of Film Censors to reconsider the certification of 'Ghost School' within 10 days.
The court also set aside the board's earlier decision to require the removal of certain expressions and scenes from the film.
British-Pakistani filmmaker Seemab Gul, who financed, produced and directed the documentary, approached the court after the board denied it a screening certificate in August.
Gul said on Thursday that she had no option but to seek judicial intervention.
"It is a well-researched documentary about the hundreds of ghost schools operating in Sindh and affecting the education of our children," she said.
The filmmaker's counsel told the court that the documentary follows a 10-year-old girl who discovers that the only school in her village has closed after rumours that it is haunted.
The counsel argued that the Sindh censor board had ordered eight excisions before granting a certificate for public exhibition, even though the film had been cleared for unrestricted screening without cuts by Pakistan's Central Board of Film Censors and the Punjab Board of Film Censors.
Gul said the documentary was based on research that identified hundreds of such schools in the province. She had earlier questioned why the film was denied clearance in Sindh when other censor boards in Pakistan had approved its screening.
The dispute over the documentary comes amid wider concerns about the condition of schools in Pakistan. In neighbouring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, around 37,000 classrooms in government schools are in dilapidated condition, an education department official said last week.
The figures came days after a school building collapse in Peshawar killed 35 people, including 34 children.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
