Scuffle on the campus: Channar’s supporters demand VC’s removal

VC Qaiser Mushtaq says minister visited the varsity without prior intimation

BAHALWALPUR:

“The vice chancellor of Islamia University of Bahawalpur must be removed at once…the government must also initiate an inquiry against him for misbehaving with a minister,” Union Council 4 Chairman Bilal Baloch said at a press conference at the Bahawalpur Press Club on Wednesday. He was joined by several UC chairmen. They demanded that the IUB vice chancellor be replaced with someone who knew better than to misbehave with a minister.

On March 7, Minister for Cooperatives Mian Iqbal Channar and MPA Mian Shoaib Awaisi had contacted the vice chancellor’s personal assistant and sought an appointment to meet the VC on Wednesday, Baloch said. “The minister and the MPA wanted to discuss various complaints brought to them by students and staff of the IUB.”

Baloch said that Channar had visited the vice chancellor’s office after getting an appointment but was told to wait for two hours. “The minister waited without complaint but then the VC refused to meet him.” He said later, Bahawalpur Commissioner Saqib Zafar invited Channar and MPA Awaisi to his house to discuss the matter.

The local government representatives requested Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to replace Dr Qaiser Mushtaq as vice chancellor of the IUB, “and appoint an upright person who deserves to lead Bahawalpur’s historical university”.

Vice Chancellor Qaiser Mushtaq said that he was unaware about Channar’s arrival at the university and had scheduled meetings elsewhere on Wednesday. He said that his staff had no information about why the minister had decided to visit the university. “They were polite to let him wait in my office.”

However, the minister called hundreds of his supporters to the IUB who broke into classrooms and vandalised university property claiming that they were “looking for me”, Mushtaq said. He said that Channar’s men had beat up the university staff and had badly injured two people.

The vice chancellor said Channar was a regular visitor at the university and had attended several conferences and seminars as chief guest.

“He is accorded proper protocol whenever he visits…However, this time he visited the university without prior intimation and his supporters’ beat up employees,” he said.

“When I was told that the minister was waiting in my office and the unpleasantness that had erupted on the campus, I figured it was inappropriate to meet him.”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2016.