Campus violence: Teacher boycott enters ninth day after professor’s murder

The union wants the VC removed among other demands.

HYDERABAD: Academics at Sindh University, which were disrupted after the murder of a professor on campus, will not go back to normal until the demands for security set by its teachers are not accepted.

The killing of Prof. Bashir Ahmed Chanur, who was also the director of students affairs, by two unidentified men on January 3 sparked the protests which have entered their ninth day.

The Sindh University Teachers Association took this decision. “We will not teach unless the Sindh government accepts our four demands,” said Prof. Dr Azhar Shah.

Around 400 teachers attended the general body meeting and hardly one per cent disagreed, said the association’s Arfana Mallah.

The teachers also organised a rally and staged a sit-in outside the office of the university’s vice chancellor, Prof. Nazir A. Mughal.

So far the university has sacked its security officer, Sajid Qayum Memon, and lodged an FIR on all 22 students who were rusticated on charges of perpetrating violence on campus. But the teachers are not happy with just these steps taken.

“We want a judicial commission to probe the killing, the resignation of the vice chancellor, the removal of the Rangers and police from security duty and action against criminal student elements along with the revival of student unions,” said Shah.

The teachers said that they have written open letters to the chief minister, governor and the other authorities but so far no one from the government has contacted them or responded to their demands.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2012.