'Stay safe meri jaan': Students shower Shafqat Mehmood with love, well wishes after COVID jab

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani students on Thursday showered Education Minister Shafqat Mehmood with love and well wishes after he got vaccinated against COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Among the wishes — such as  "stay safe meri jaan [Stay safe, my love]" — were also requests from students to reopen schools and universities despite coronavirus cases rising worryingly.

Nicknamed 'Jaani' for his work and interaction with students, Mehmood got the COVID-19 jab at Islamabad's Polyclinic Hospital. However, the students still did not let him catch a break from his duties as the federal minister of education.

Some students demanded he orders educational institutes be reopened while others pushed for virtual classes to continue, fearing contracting the coronavirus.

"For God's sake, my brother, please open the universities. We can't stay at home any longer," said a Twitter user, who complained of being tasked with domestic work as well.

"Sir opening school is the perfect decision. Otherwise, these kids would slack off and not study anything," wrote one Twitter user, warning of "lazy bums who are gonna be failures in the future" if institutes did not reopen.

"We're facing a lot of loss [in terms of syllabus not being covered] as teachers are not taking online classes seriously," said another.

Some students pointed out the slow Internet speed as well, while others said they wished to spend the holy month of Ramadan at home.

Some students also voiced concern over the increasing coronavirus positivity rate of 7.8%, which shot up days after Pakistan crossed the 600,000-case mark. "Our education minister doesn't care," said one.

Earlier, many of the students, seemingly bored at home during online classes amid the coronavirus pandemic, started a trend to push for the cancellation of Cambridge Assessment International Education under the #cancelcieexams2021 trend, calling him "Shafqat Jaani" in a bid to flatter him.