Teachers’ union warns of boycott if ‘missing’ professor not released

MUET's Prof Inam Bhatti was whisked away by law enforcers from Karachi airport on Tuesday

HYDERABAD: After a law enforcement agency allegedly whisked away from a faculty of Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, from Karachi Airport on Tuesday, teachers at the MUET launched a token protest on Thursday. Members of the civil society and lawyers also took to protest in Hyderabad for the recovery of Prof Inam Bhatti, who taught in the chemical engineering department and was the director of the Office of Research, Innovation and Commercialisation (ORIC).

"The MUET teachers will wear black armbands at work till September 12. If Prof Bhatti isn't released by then, the teachers will boycott the exams scheduled from September 13," Mehran University Teachers Association (MUTA) president Ghulam Abbas Mahar told The Express Tribune. The office-bearers of MUTA and Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association earlier held a meeting in MUET.

According to Mahar, the boycott call has been given by the FAPUASA Sindh chapter. "Both FAPUASA and MUTA have demanded that if Prof Bhatti is involved in some criminal or anti-state offence, he should be booked and produced in a court of law."

Prof Bhatti, who is also a literary person and has remained associated with nationalist parties, was boarding a flight for Turkey to attend an international conference on energy and environment when he was stopped by the Federal Investigation Agency at the airport. His wife, Shagufta Bhatti, told a press conference at the Hyderabad Press Club on Wednesday that her husband entered the airport at around 3 am and that he was even issued the boarding pass and tags for the luggage.

Later, a team of the FIA approached him and informed him that his name was on the Exit Control List. Prof Bhatti made the last contact with his son, Salar Bhatti, who went to see him off at the airport before the FIA team took him away for investigation.

Over four hours later, the son saw his father being taken away in a double cabin vehicle bearing registration number SPD-322 from the airport. The representatives of Sindh United Party, Sindh Human Rights Defenders and other civil society workers in their protest demanded the immediate release of Prof Bhatti. They said that is his name was in the ECL, the professor should either have been denied from the board a flight or arrested but the secret detention is unlawful.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 6^th, 2019.