Degrees of 8 parliamentarians declared fake

Punjab University says it has no record of Shumaila Rana, Seemal Kamran, Farah Deeba among others.

LAHORE: The University of Punjab has sent a final report to the Higher Education Commission (HEC) on Thursday declaring degrees of eight parliamentarians fake, reported Express News.

The university said that it had no reports of eight parliamentarians, including Pakistan Muslim League – Quaid’s (PML-Q) Muhabbat Khan Marri, Seemal Kamran and Amna Ulfat. PML-Nawaz’s Afshaan Farooq, Farah Deeba and Shumaila Rana as well as Awami National Party’s (ANP) Syed Aqil Shah were also included in the list. Naseer Akhtar’s degree was also declared fake.

The HEC had earlier sent 376 degrees to the university for verification.

In the final report, the university also declared six other degrees "suspicious" and gave a final warning to the respondents to present their matric and intermediate certificates for verification.

These include National Assembly member Noman Iqbal and Punjab Assembly members Abdul Hanif, Mohammad Nawaz, Neelum Chaudhry and Mohammad Arqaan.

According to sources, cases of two fake degrees are still in courts, while Mubashir Iqbal and Mohammad Rizwan have taken back their cases.

Earlier, the Balochistan High Court had disqualified Syed Ehsan Shah from his post of industries minister for possessing and using a forged degree.

Correction: An earlier version of the story incorrectly stated 'members of Punjab Assembly' instead of 'parliamentarians'. The error is regretted.