Students vs journalists: BZU students storm press club, attack journalists

Over 20 journalists injured, 38 students arrested.


Owais Jaffery June 16, 2011

MULTAN:


Over 20 journalists were injured by Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU) students, who were protesting outside the Multan Press Club on Wednesday.


According to eyewitnesses, more than 170 students from the BZU Veterinary Department have been protesting for their summer vacations to be announced but the head of the Veterinary Department has yet to issue a notice in this regard. The protesting students also said that they were rallying against the university administration because their degree was not yet certified by the Pakistan Veterinary Medical Council (PVMC).

“The university administration is compromising our entire future and they do not care.

They have not announced summer vacations because we began protesting for accreditation,” said a veterinary sciences student Azhar Mehmood.

The students blocked the main road outside the press club and when several journalists asked them to allow two vehicles to pass a riot broke out.

“We had only asked that they let the cars pass because one of the cars needed to get to the hospital. The passenger was a heart patient and they had blocked the main path,” said senior vice president of Multan Press Club Shehzad Anwar. “Suddenly a riot broke out and before we knew what was happening they were hitting journalists with bricks and damaged several cars and windows,” he added.

Anwar said that the extreme temperature of 48 degrees Celsius was a contributing factor to why the situation escalated. “All the journalists did was ask the students to give way for a couple of vehicles to pass safely. They began throwing bricks,” he added.

An eyewitness, Babar, told police officials that the students seemed to have been pacified for a few minutes and when the journalists turned their backs to return to the press club they gathered stones and bricks and pelted them at the reporters.

The reporters called in police officials but the police van arrived after two hours. “We were locked inside the press club waiting for the police to arrive and all the while nearly 200 students were breaking windows and burning tyres right outside,” said APP photographer Qasim Ghauri.

“The Cantt police station is only five minutes away from the press club but they took two hours to get here and when they did there were only two policemen,” Ghauri said.

“We saw that the situation was out of control and the crowd was too large so we had to return to get reinforcements,” said Cantt SHO Rizwan Ahmed. SSP Malik Yousuf said that they were conducting a thorough investigation into the incident. “We are taking statements from the students as well as the journalists before this escalates further. Several students have been arrested for damaging public property,” he added.

Over 20 journalists were injured in the encounter and 11 are currently in critical condition.

“Many of the reporters have suffered head wounds because they were hit by bricks and stones,” said Nishtar Hospital Medical Superintendent (MS) Zafar Alvi.

Alvi said that the journalists were currently in the ICU and emergency wards.

Police officials began a raid at different places in the district to arrest the students responsible for the attack and a total of 38 students have been arrested.

Eyewitnesses said that eight cars and 27 motorcycles of journalist in the Multan Press Club were destroyed and several windows and the gate of the press club building was ruined.

Journalists of the Multan Press Club protested against the incident against and SHO Ahmed has assured the journalists that strict action will be taken against the students.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 16th, 2011.

COMMENTS (1)

fakhar | 12 years ago | Reply this incident is projected on one side. there are ways to ask protesting students to give way for a patient but if they are asked in RASH way "oey, hatho yha se, chalo bhago, " with pushes by hand then no one wil folow your instruction. they were students of uni,not the illeterate that can'nt folow simple talk of sparing way to patient. Fact is that protest was about to end, cameras were pack up and that man wanted to be hero by pushiong students to take way although student were reasy to go back coz protest was wel recorded and they gain thier target. and press club men brought cane woodedn strips from MPC and took two students into M press Club then students throw birck and stone. Important is that Why they were pushed badly to go back as they were ready to go smoothly? why wooden strips were brought by Multan Press club men that changed scene from pushes into object throwing and beating scene why two students were force fully taken into MPC Gate that MAINLY made students RAsh. Think and evaluate. An eyewitnees.
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