Campus violence: Hopped up PkSF boys run into police while fleeing Rangers

The first fight broke out over a student activist who switched over to the IJT.

KARACHI:

Violence broke out at the Urdu university after a student activist switched allegiances. Tuesday’s fighting was not related to the clash at Karachi University a day earlier, even though campus violence tends to spread across the city.

At least three students and a police constable were injured in the fighting at the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology’s (FUUAST) Gulshan-e-Iqbal campus on Tuesday. The Pakhtoon Students Federation (PkSF) and the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT) went at each other over a dissident activist of the PSF who had joined the IJT a few days back.

According to a university official, PkSF boys thrashed their former activist inside campus upon which the IJT retaliated. The rangers posted there reacted promptly, however, and baton-charged the boys to disperse them, said the official. The situation inside campus was controlled within five minutes.

But as the crowd withdrew, a few gunshots rang out, prompting the rangers to take some boys into custody. At least three PkSF activists were detained and handed over to the police. As the PkSF boys fled campus, they ran into the police outside where they fired in the air and threw stones, said Aziz Bhatti SHO Kenson Dean. This became the beginning of another clash which blocked traffic on University Road. The police responded with its own aerial firing.

“Policeman Asghar Ali was hit by a stone thrown by PkSF activists,” said the SHO. An FIR was expected to be registered later on Tuesday.

FUUAST shut down and a notification was pasted at the gate, stating that all examinations for the MA Part I (Private) programme scheduled for March 13 were postponed.

A number of students had arrived to sit the exam. “The clash is over and the situation is under control,” said a frustrated Anas Khadim, who had to take two buses to arrive at campus from Orangi. “The university administration should not punish us for other people’s misdeeds.”

Another student scribbled graffiti over the notification, which roughly translates to: “No one knows when the worries of this world will end.”

PSF president Fida Hussain Kakar told The Express Tribune that the matter had been a trivial one but the Rangers and police had aggravated the situation. “They [the rangers] fired at our activists with their G3 rifles inside campus while the police opened fire outside,” he said, adding that the PSF activists answered with stones. Kakar claimed that five of the PSF activists were injured and three are missing. Those three are in police custody. “In contrast to media claims, no student group used weapons during the clash but the police and rangers did,” he maintained.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 14^th, 2012.