Islamia College teachers baton charged

TSA boycotts classes, demands VC resignation and suspension of campus police station SHO

PESHAWAR: Teachers of the historic Islamia College University on Wednesday were baton-charged and beaten up by police for protesting outside the vice-chancellor’s office. The protest and beatings came on a day when two provincial cabinet members visited the varsity.

Members of the Islamia College University Teaching Staff Association (TSA) had organised a peaceful protest outside the Islamia College University (ICU) vice chancellor’s office on Wednesday morning. They held up a banner to protest against the alleged unjust and non-serious attitude of the varsity’s vice-chancellor and administration. They demanded the payment of their outstanding bills, renewing contracts of faculty members, changes in the current administration including the resignation of incumbent vice-chancellor.

They also held up placards reading “Go, VC, Go” and “stop merit violation”.

However, with the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Finance Minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra and Adviser to the K-P Chief Minister on Science, Technology and Information Technology Ziaullah Bangash due at the university to inaugurate an information technology festival, the campus police asked the protesters to move.

The protesting teachers, however, argued that it was their constitutional right to stage peaceful protests for their genuine demands.

When the teachers refused to listen to the campus police for a second time, the campus cops started beating the teachers without any warning. Videos of the incident, which went viral on the internet, showed campus police officers grabbing teachers by the scruffs of their necks and collars before dragging them away to the campus police station.

Later, the TSA held an emergency meeting where they announced to boycott classes until the resignation of the vice-chancellor and the suspension of the campus police station chief.

The TSA further said that they have been protesting for their genuine demands for some time now but the varsity administration has turned a blind eye to their issues apart from using delaying tactics.

They further also demanded that a judicial inquiry should be conducted into the corruption and other irregularities in the Islamia College University.

The TSA further demanded the K-P governor and chief minister to fulfil their demands. They pointed out that many of their demands, including changes in the varsity’s administration structure, renewal of contracts and constitution of the selection boards had been agreed upon between the university’s administration and executive members of TSA during a December 2019 meeting, but have yet to be implemented and was the main reason for their protest.

Creative Fest

Meanwhile, the two-day K-P Creative Fest 2020, kicked off at the varsity on Wednesday. The festival was inaugurated by Jhagra and Bangash.

With a theme of ‘Meet the makers’, the festival had been organised by the K-P Directorate of Science and Technology.

Jhagra said that the festival aims to provide a platform for the youth of the province to showcase their projects.

Bangash said that the government is taking steps to regulate social media, adding that some people were busy in creating propaganda against the federal government.

He added that 2020 has been declared as the digital year. In this regard, he said that the provincial government will invest in digital innovation and the ‘Creative Fest’ was part of this project.

The adviser further said that the provincial government is inviting foreign investment in the IT sector to not only boost the provincial economy but also to provide greater jobs opportunities to the youth.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 27^th, 2020.