A university spokesman denied the vice chancellor had given a direct order. He also said that the students’ grievances had been addressed at a meeting later on Monday and that they had agreed to end their protest.
The students of the Institute of Plant Pathology (IPP) want their degrees to be considered equivalent to an agriculture university degree and have staged several rallies to press their demands.
On Monday, around a dozen IPP students approached the vice chancellor’s office shouting slogans denouncing the head of a committee set up to review the degree equivalence issue. They were joined by some half a dozen members of the Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT), the student wing of the Jamaat-i-Islami.
When they reached the office, they were confronted by security guards who stopped them from entering, said Madiha Khan, one of the IPP students. “We sensed from the guards’ demeanour that if we stayed here too long then they would hurt us. We wanted to leave but the IJT people wouldn’t let us,” she said.
The vice chancellor, registrar, chief security officer and resident officer of the university then came out with more guards and told them to disperse.
But at this point the IJT activists escalated the friction by shouting abuse at the university administration and the vice chancellor, Khan said.
The dozen or so guards then began beating the protestors male and female with canes, belts, fists and boots, said Khan and other witnesses. “The whole time the VC had a smile on his face and he congratulated the guards,” Khan said.
At least eight students were injured, including Khan and four other female students, identified by Khan as Rabia, Lubna, Memoona and Mehwish.
“They did not care that we are members of the opposite sex. They were brutal,” said Khan.
At another rally by IPP students last Friday, protestors disrupted an event in honour of British parliamentarian Lord Nazir Ahmad, causing great embarrassment to Vice Chancellor Dr Mujahid Kamran. Some students were also injured in clashes with guards on that day.
IPP students, speaking to journalists, speculated that the vice chancellor gave guards the order on Monday to beat up the protestors in revenge for Friday’s embarrassment. They accused the vice chancellor of running the university like a dictator. But they said they had no intention of involving the police in the matter.
They also criticised the IJT activists, saying they were the catalyst for the violence. “The IPP students condemn the IJT activists’ destructive role,” said one female student.
The IJT activists The Express Tribune spoke to rejected the allegation, saying they simply supported the IPP students. They bristled at the suggestion that they provoked the violence, exchanging angry words with reporters and cameramen at the scene. Some journalists later filed an application with Muslim Town police station accusing the IJT of beating them up.
Reconciliation?
The IPP students’ demands include the replacement of the institute’s director, Dr Ghazala Nasim; the replacement of the head of the committee considering the degree equivalence issue; more agriculture teachers in their department; and the restoration of students expelled some two weeks ago for protesting.
The PU spokesman said that two representatives of the IPP students met with university officials later in the day at the committee room in the vice chancellor’s office. The meeting was chaired by Prof Muhammad Amin Athar, director of the Institute of Biochemistry.
Registrar Prof Muhammad Akhtar, student affairs advisor Iftikhar Ahmad Chaudhry, resident officers Prof Javed Sami and Malik Muhammad Zaheer, and advisor Col Ikramullah Khan also attended.
The university officials pledged to soon appoint a senior plant pathologist as director of the institute and to hire more agriculture teachers in addition to five recently appointed to the faculty, the spokesman said.
As for the expelled students, they must apply for their restoration individually to the vice chancellor and tender an unconditional apology for their misbehaviour with teachers, he said.
The student representatives announced they would end their protest immediately and pledged not to agitate in future, said the spokesman.
The students told The Express Tribune that they would wait and see whether the university fulfilled its promises.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 2nd, 2010.
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