Students in Khuzdar, Balochistan spent a night camped outside the Allama Muhammad Umar Din Puri Digital Library after the district administration ordered it reserved exclusively for female students, pushing male students out to a newly designated public library instead.

The order, issued by the Additional Deputy Commissioner (Revenue), gave male students three days to shift to the Captain (Retired) Shaheed Ashiq Usman Public Library, citing a rise in female enrollment and the need for a "more conducive" study environment. Anyone who didn't comply, the notice warned, would lose registration at either library.

Students weren't having it. Male and female students marched together from the library to the Deputy Commissioner's office in what they called a peaceful "educational walk" for the right to education, then staged a sit-in on the road after the administration shut the library's doors entirely.

Their demand is simple: keep both libraries general, with separate sections for male and female students, so anyone can register at either, and keep fees affordable for everyone.

In an open letter to Balochistan's Chief Minister, students say the library ran without a single gender-related dispute for seven years, and that the trouble started only after a proposal to set up a private academy on the premises, followed, they allege, by intimidation and steep fee hikes aimed at pushing male students out. They're invoking Articles 25 and 25-A of the Constitution equality before the law, and the state's duty to provide education arguing no law permits denying a public facility on the basis of gender alone.

They're asking the Chief Minister to step in, hear their student committee, and reverse what they call a one-sided decision.

Reported by Balochistan Dispatch, July 30, 2026.Balochistan

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