KARACHI: The hunger strike staged by the students from Balochistan at their camp outside the Karachi Press Club entered the third day here on Thursday. The students have gone on strike in protest against the decision of the Higher Education Commission to introduce online classes.

The students said they were not against studying online, but the problem was unavailability of mobile service, let alone an Internet service, in their areas.

Meanwhile, a joint rally by different student representative bodies was taken out from the Arts Council here which culminated at the camp of the hunger striking students outside the KPC.

Speaking on the occasion, some student leaders said that the decision of the HEC to introduce online classes was in total disregard of ground realities. They said that the HEC decision had been agonizing the students from Balochistan who simply cannot access online education due to no fault of their own.

They also condemned what they said the apathy of the provincial and federal governments in ignoring to deal with the predicament of the students. The hunger strikers said that they had been deeply saddened to note the indifferent attitude of the authorities who were even ignoring the fact that "we have been bracing the worst of weather" in order to demand justice.