Karachi: The Sindh government has banned corporal punishment against students at religious seminaries. The decision was reached in the latest meeting of the Sindh cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah. The meeting took into consideration the draft rules pertaining to the Sindh Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Act-2016. The Sindh government’s Department of School Education presented the rules in the cabinet meeting. The law envisages that handing down physical punishments to the students in any educational institution of the province becomes a criminal offence against which police could lodge a case. The rules passed by the Sindh cabinet declare that any act causing physical, mental, and emotional harm to the students would become a criminal offence. The rules further declare that the sexual exploitation of students will also be a punishable act in the province.