QAU shut after clash between students

ISLAMABAD:

The Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) campus turned into a battleground on Monday as two student groups clashed by using batons and sticks, which left several students injured.

The university administration failed to control the situation after the violence started with a minor conflict between two student groups.

Soon tempers flared up and the campus turned into a battleground as both groups beat each other with sticks, stones and other harmful tools. The quarrel created a terrible situation on the campus for hours while no police were called by the university administration to handle the situation except for mobilizing the internal security personnel, who failed to bring the situation under control.

While the reason for the clash was not immediately known, Baloch and Pakhtun students turned on each other, attacking each other with rods, clubs and fists.

In a notification, the university administration announced to shut the university for an indefinite period. According to the notification, the university administration has directed the students to vacate hostels including boys and girls on an immediate basis.

“In the backdrop of a precarious law-and-order situation amid violent clashes between the student groups, the QAU is closed till further orders. All residents of the hostels (boys and girls) are hereby directed to vacate the hostels immediately,” said the notification.

This was not the first time that such violence occurred at a top-ranking university. In the past, the university has also seen armed clashes and violence on campus.

When QAU Acting Vice-Chancellor Dr Shaista Sohail was contacted to know about the incident and the administration’s failure to bring the situation under control, she refused to comment.

However, an administration official claimed that the violent groups were led by expelled students of the university who had been indicted in various FIRs for creating the law-and-order and resorting to violence.

The official claimed that the university disciplinary committee took some decisions against them and as a result, they try to instigate the students to create disorder on the campus by staging strikes against the administration.

Sources said that the university administration has failed to put in place stringent measures to stop the recurrence of such incidents on campus.

A senior faculty member told The Express Tribune wishing anonymity that the situation has become extremely alarming and it might lead to a major incident if attention was not paid to the activities of miscreants, who roam around the campus and live in hostels. “The recurring violence is damaging the reputation of the top-ranking academic institution,” he said.

He said that when parents come with their children to enroll them in different programmes, they go back and never return after seeing the horrible campus environment.

He said that in the past, it was never seen that the students damaged the university property, but shockingly, this practice was gaining roots during such clashes these days.

“No proper security arrangements and the lack of the boundary wall and outsiders within the university are among the major reasons behind such worse incidents,” he said.

A few months back, the QAU had been closed for weeks after the administration failed to deal with the students who called for a strike.

Officials said that trouble had been brewing at the university for the past few days and the two groups had faced off numerous times earlier.

Clashes between dozens of active ethnic and sectarian student groups at the capital’s major public sector universities such as QAU, Federal Urdu University, and the International Islamic University are common.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2023.