IJT accused of more campus violence

Student beaten up, rendered deaf in one ear; guards witnessed but did nothing.

LAHORE: The police are reluctant to take action against activists of the Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT) who allegedly assaulted a student at the Punjab University canteen, according to the victim of the attack.

Waqas Tahir, a BS honours student at the Institute of Sociology, told The Express Tribune that he was sitting with some female classmates at lunch time on Friday when over a dozen young men beat him up with punches and kicks, leaving him deaf in one ear.

Muslim Town police have registered an FIR against unnamed accused under sections 365, 342, 148 and 149 of the Pakistan Penal Code, but they have sealed it and admitted that they have not tried to make any arrests yet.

Tahir said he was sitting near the Girls’ Cafeteria when more than 15 JTI activists set upon him without warning. He said he was dragged through the main corridor to Hostel No 4, an IJT stronghold, where he was detained for around two hours and repeatedly assaulted.

He added that PU guards saw him being dragged through the corridor and being manhandled, but they did nothing. “I saw the guards and pleaded for help but they turned a deaf ear to my cries,” he said.

He said his female friends tried to help him, but the IJT activists threatened to assault them too. He said that he asked them several times why they were beating him up, but they would not tell him.

“What are the university guards paid for when they are not going to do anything to protect students?” said Tahir Butt, the victim’s father.

He said he had also been disappointed by the police, as when they initially visited Muslim Town police station, they told him to take the matter to the university’s resident officer.

“They eventually lodged an FIR, but they are not going to take any action against them because it seems that they are scared or under the influence of the accused,” he said.

Butt said that the police, rather than carrying out their own investigations, asked the complainants for the names of the IJT activist. “How can we identify the culprits? We don’t know who they are.”

He added that he was determined to get justice. “These hooligans have badly tortured my son. His right eardrum was ruptured,” he said.

He also criticised the university administration, saying it had allowed the PU to become a “bulwark of terror”. He added: “If the administration cannot control the security situation they should allow police to rescue the campus from these despots.”

Zubair Safdar, the PU nazim of IJT, denied that Jamiat activists were involved in the incident. “Every wrong happening in the university gets blamed on the IJT. We have noting to do with it,” he said.

He said that all IJT activists were offering Friday prayers at the time the attack was said to have occured. “After Friday prayers our workers were distributing pamphlets against an unscrupulous professor,” he said. Sub Inspector Waseem of Muslim Town police station told The Express Tribune that the FIR had been sealed on the direction of police high ups. He said they did not give a copy of the FIR to the complainant either. He admitted that no efforts had been made so far to identify or arrest the accused.

Khawaja Tahir Jamil, a PU spokesman, said that he was unaware of any such incident on campus. “But if an FIR has been lodged then there must be something to it,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 8^th, 2010.