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Peshawar Uni fails to ban tobacco use, sale
PESHAWAR, June 22(Dawn): The administration of the University of Peshawar has
failed to impose a ban on the use and sale of tobacco inside the campus, despite
an announcement last month.
"Most of the shops in the university campus
are selling cigarettes openly. The administration had declared the campus as a
'tobacco-free zone'," said an official.
According to him, the
administration had issued an order on May 22, banning the sale and purchase of
cigarettes and all sorts of tobacco products from May 31, the World No Tobacco
Day.
"Most of the university officials purchase cigarettes from us.
Nobody had asked us about violation of the order," a shopkeeper at the Coffee
Shop, University Campus, told this correspondent.
It is a matter of grave
concern that the director administration whose office is located in the Coffee
Shop has failed to strictly prohibit the sale of cigarettes.
A senior
teacher said that the university staff and the students were also against the
ban. "If the ban is implemented in letter and spirit, then the teachers,
employees and students would go outside the campus to buy cigarettes," he
added.
A notification issued in this connection last month said that all
shops and canteens in the campus were directed to exhaust the existing stock by
May 31 after which they would not be allowed to sell or purchase tobacco
items.
The university administration's directives banning sale of
cigarettes had been issued after a verbal commitment made with the World Health
Organisation by the vice chancellor.
The directives had warned the owners
of canteens and shopkeepers that violation of the order could lead to
cancellation of allotment contracts.
A letter carrying information about
the hazardous affects of smoking had also been issued by the university
administration, but it somehow had gone missing.
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