School closed due to 'blasphemy'

A nursing school was shut down and its Christian principal and four students suspended after Muslim pupils claimed verses from the Koran had been desecrated, officials said today.

The action by the management of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Science - the main hospital in Islamabad - came two weeks after Muslim nurses protested that verses from Islam's holy book about proper manners in drinking water had been erased from a wall.

Altaf Pervez, an area police chief, confirmed the incident, but said he did not know who was to blame. No spokesman for the hospital, which runs the school, was available to comment.

But principal Stella Hidayat said she was still in shock after being suspended.

"I was on leave when this incident happened," she said. "I don't know why they punished me."

A doctor at the hospital said the suspensions have been imposed to "defuse tensions".