Bahria University debacle: Varsity, hunger striking student squabble over rustication

Arsalan Bilal says he was suspended because of his minority status.

ISLAMABAD: In an ongoing battle, Arsalan Bilal, a student at Bahria University, vowed to continue his hunger strike in protests of what he says is his unjust suspension.

Bilal was released by the police after being detained at Margalla police station for six hours without a case being registered against him

Appearing tired and weak, Bilal was greeted by his spokesperson and two friends outside the station.

Police said Bilal had assured them that he would “not stage his protest sit-in against his rustication outside the university campus in future.” However, Bilal said he would not end his hunger strike until his demands were met.

“This will be the longest hunger strike in the history of the country. I might be physically weak but my soul is strong,” said Bilal, while talking to The Express Tribune.

Police said they arrested him for violating section 144 imposed in the city but refrained from booking him as “it would have ruined his career”.

An international relations undergraduate student, Bilal went on hunger strike outside his university on April 6 against his rustication for one semester by a university disciplinary committee for alleged “gross breach of discipline”.

Bilal denied all charges against him and said that certain university officials wanted to get rid of him because they were irked by his inquisitive nature and some did not like the fact that he belonged to a minority sect.

He cited as evidence the fact that his thesis on ‘the Politicisation of Religion in Pakistan’ had been turned into a mere research paper despite his academic progress entitling him to make it a thesis.

A poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz that he emailed to friends and some faculty was transformed into a charge against him for his rustication as a ‘threatening’ email, he added.

However, spokesperson for the university and Campus Director Air Commodore (Retd) Anjum Sarfraz, who was also a member of the disciplinary committee, said multiple breaches of discipline had led to his rustication, “not just the email”.

“He has been continuously threatening his research supervisor besides sending her the email,” Sarfaraz said.

The spokesperson said Bilal was given multiple warnings, the first of which accompanied by a Rs 5,000 fine and came in June 2010. His father was also informed that “his son has serious emotional and academic problems in the university” and was asked to meet Bilal’s supervisor, said Sarfraz.

A copy of the rustication letter, available with The Express Tribune, said that “he has been disrespectful to his faculty members besides being a (troublesome) student and (he) habitually disobeyed the orders of his teachers”.

His father, Mobashir Iqbal, said that the issue what the administration made it out to be and that he had asked the university to reverse the decision.

“He was advised by his supervisor to change the topic since it would be considered biased as he belonged to a minority sect – but he was allowed to pursue the topic after he refused to change,” Sarfraz emphasised.  He was manipulating his minority status for his own vested interests, said the university spokesperson.

Bilal’s thesis being changed to a research paper was because he failed to submit the required data on time, the spokesperson added.

Bilal, on the other hand, was insistent that the university accept his demands (available at https://www.change.org/petitions/justice-for-arsalan bilal?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=share_petition) or he would continue his hunger strike.

He said his “struggle was not merely for his own restoration – rather it was against the system and the pseudo intellectuals who were curbing his constitutional right to free thinking and speech”.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 9^th, 2012.