Eight of the 9/11 conspirators studied science and engineering. And in a paper published last year in The European Journal of Sociology, researchers showed statistically that of 404 men from violent Islamist groups, one-fifth were engineers. So perhaps it should not have come as such a shock for Karachi University professors that one of their Applied Physics students has been arrested on suspicion of being a Tehrik-e-Taliban militant.
On Thursday, the Sindh police’s Crime Investigation Department announced the capture of four TTP suspects at a high-powered press conference headed by chief of police Saud Mirza. Among the four men was university student Maaz Ali, son of Liaqat Ali. The suspects were introduced as hardcore militants in possession of heavy arms and suicide bomber jackets - young men who were planning to attack major government installations in the city.
Maaz was also allegedly involved in a blast on campus that targeted the Imamia Students Organisation.
An assistant professor at the department was horrified at the news. “There is one student who spells his name as Muaz Ali in the second year bachelor’s programme of my class,” he told The Express Tribune. “He was attending my classes until a couple of weeks back,” he recalled. The teacher said that if indeed that same student has been apprehended by the authorities, it would be a shock. “Muaz is an average student and like typical students at the bachelor level, he lacked the confidence to even ask questions from his teacher,” he said, adding that the student seemed extremely reserved.
Maaz’s case throws up the question that if the student indeed wanted to join a terrorist group such as the TTP, what was he expecting to learn at this department. “It’s not like we teach how to build nuclear bombs in this department, do we?” the assistant professor asked out aloud, before freezing in thought to his own question.
Another professor at the department, who did not want to be named, said teachers can never tell what’s going through their students’ minds. But, he admitted that he hesitates to teach them certain topics. “Last semester, I was planning to start a project with my students to remotely control a device, but then stopped when I learnt that one of them hailed from Waziristan,” he said. He clarified, however, that he wasn’t stereotyping people from the northern areas but was cognizant of the possibility that any person with a misguided notion about jihad could use the knowledge gained through such courses for their own misadventures.
These teachers are interested in finding out when and where did this alleged tendency to tilt towards extremism originate from in the student? Did it happen before he was enrolled or did it develop during his time on campus? They are now asking how come students with a “jihadi bent of mind” mostly wanted to study at departments such as Chemical Engineering and now even Applied Physics and Computer Science.
The head of Applied Physics department, Fareeda Farukh, was not forthcoming on details of ‘Maaz Ali’, saying that she needed time to check their records to verify whether any such student existed. However, she said that if it were true that the person belonged to her department, then it was an extremely unfortunate case. “I seriously doubt any of our students get the time to indulge in any other activities apart from their strenuous studies,” she said.
In fact, the university administration became aware of the case only through media reports, added KU Student Adviser Prof Dr Ansar Rizwi. “The vice chancellor can order an inquiry and comment on the case only when it becomes clear that such a student exists.” A cursory attempt at finding the record of the student on their computer system didn’t yield any results, he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 14th, 2011.
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