LONDON, (APP)- Oxford University is assessing ways of providing security for the newly appointed Chairperson, Pakistan Peoples Party ,Bilawal Bhutto Zardari who is a first year student at Christ Church College, says a report in ‘The Telegraph’.
A University spokesman told the paper that they will review their security arrangements. “We take the security of all our students, including high profile students, extremely seriously,” he added.
The spokesman further said :”We cannot comment on individual students even if they are high profile.”
Bilawal was named to head PPP following the last week’s assassination of his mother and party leader Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi.
According to the paper, the university is expected to take advice from the intelligence services and Thames Valley police as it prepares to welcome the teenager back to Oxford.
A family friend Victoria Schofield told paper that when Bilawal enrolled in the Oxford University, like many students he was bombarded with offers of all sorts of societies but his primary interest was to join the Union.
From the moment he stepped inside the famous hall, the debates became Bilawal’s main area of interest outside his studies. He spends hours at the Union listening to debates, although he has yet to speak in one. His main area of interest in, unsurprisingly, politics.
The paper said in honour of his mother, a special debate will be held on the 17th January, which he is expected to attend. As a member of the Faculty of History, he spent his first term studying British history, and will return to study general history.
Meanwhile, according to another report in ‘The Times’, PPP officials based in Britain are planning to meet police early this month. It is expected that Scotland Yard’s specialist protection branch, SO1, will make an assessment of the risk to Bilawal’s life. If they decide that he is at risk of assassination, they will liaise with Thames Valley Police to provide him with armed protection.
SO1 protects the Prime Minister and other government members and foreign dignitaries visiting Britain. But its brief also includes the security of “high-profile persons considered to be under threat from terrorist attack”.
The paper said both the police and the university authorities have experience in dealing with high-profile students.
It said Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former US President, completed a two-year masters in international relations in 2003, and Tony Blair’s son, Nicky, finished his degree in modern history in the summer. Bilawal, however, is a unique case. First-year students could find themselves sharing a lecture theatre with the leader of a country’s governing party.