Unrest at the campus: Three ex-students remanded to police custody over outbreaks of violence

Revival of student unions demanded.

HYDERABAD: All is not well at Sindh University and its main campus is still plagued by student unrest with the administration struggling to restore peace and ensure classes go ahead uninterrupted.

An all parties conference held some eight months back to purge the campus of troublemakers seems to have failed and this week’s student protests indicate that the university is still going through the mill.

On December 7, the administration announced the rustication of 18 students, the cancellation of their hostel allotment and a five-year ban on their entry. Three ex-students were also banned from entry. They were charged with bringing weapons on campus and firing them, boycotting semester examinations, staging sits-in and damaging the university’s property.

Subsequently, the university authorities nominated six of them in an FIR. Three of them were arrested on Thursday and a court remanded them on Friday to five days in the custody of the Jamshoro police for questioning.

The latest unrest started last week when a group of students, representing student wings of Sindhi nationalist parties, protested during a meeting of a committee which is tasked with implementing a 24-point code of conduct designed to purge the campus of all kinds of violence.

However, those who suffered on account of Wednesday’s action refute this stance. “The Higher Education Commission granted Rs5.2 million to the university so that it could waive the fee of students from the flooded areas. But this concession is not being offered yet,” an affected student, Bachal Narejot, told The Express Tribune.

Another student, Qurban Ali Mahar, complained that they were neither served prior notices nor were their parents called before the rustication notification was issued. “This is against the university’s by-laws. We will challenge this action in the high court,” he said.

Mahar claimed that following the students protests, the university’s pro vice chancellor and the registrar had agreed on a meeting to discuss their demands but they instead served the rustication orders. The decade-long ban on student unions is cited as a factor contributing to unrest at the campus. “At least 15 groups are active in university politics and all claim to represent the students,” says Awais Bajkani, a former president of the Sindh Taraqi Pasand Party’s student wing.

Bajkani regretted that despite assurances given by the university authorities after the April 17 conference, the ban has yet to be lifted on student unions.

Dr Azhar Shah, the president of the Sindh University Teachers Association, agreed with this contention, saying not only should student unions be restored but their representatives be included in the university disciplinary committee. “At present, the committee lacks representation from the unions as well as from the teachers’ association,” Shah said.

Shah regretted that the monitoring committee’s agenda had not been implemented and he accused the students for breaching it. “The codes stipulated an end to campus violence, a display of weapons, wall chalkings, boycotts and other activities but all of this still continues.”

He said that the teachers’ body had also demanded action against students who opened fire on one of the teachers during an argument.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 10^th, 2011.