Punjab University: Illegal residents to be evicted from hostels

PU spokesman says police help needed to tackle IJT.

LAHORE:

Punjab University officials met with senior figures in the police and in the provincial government on Tuesday and agreed a strategy to purge the university’s hostels of illegal occupants, The Express Tribune has learnt.

PU Vice Chancellor Mujahid Kamran, Education Minister Rana Mashhood Khan, Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Chaudhry Shafiq Gujjar and others attended the meeting at a university conference room to discuss how to ensure that there is no repeat of the scenes last month when a suspected Al Qaeda handler was arrested from Hostel No 1.

A joint strategy was drawn up to evict any illegal hostel residents amidst reports that suspected terrorists were again reported to be visiting the hostels or staying there whilst pretending to be students, said officials who attended the meeting.

PU officials said at the meeting that several illegal occupants of rooms in Hostel No 16 had been identified and kicked out, but there were still rooms in other hostels occupied by non-students. They said that they needed the held of the police to clear the hostels, as “some elements” would resist any attempt by university staff to get rooms vacated.

A joint strategy was drawn up at the meeting. First, the university would identify all the illegal hostel residents and then serve them notices to vacate their rooms. In the second phase, police would launch an operation to physically remove the non-students.

The minister and the CCPO assured the vice chancellor that all the hostels would be cleared of illegal occupants and “the writ of the government would be established”.

PU public relations officer Khurram Shehzad said that the university had sought the police’s help in view of the arrest of the Al Qaeda suspect last month. A few days ago, he said, the administration had found an outsider living in a room belonging to Islami Jamiat Talaba Nazim Hafiz Wajid. They had locked the room, but IJT activists had then broken the locks on three other rooms and also besieged the residence of the Hall Council chairman.

“Due to these circumstances, the university administration sought the help of the government and the police which led to today’s meeting,” he said. “It has been decided that all hostels will be vacated of non-students/outsiders at any cost,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 30^th, 2013.