PU teachers condemn raids on campus
Lahore, July 14: The Punjab University's Academic Staff Association (ASA) passing a resolution on Monday condemned police raids for arrest of a female faculty member on New Campus. According to a press statement, executive members of the ASA met on Monday and passed a resolution demanding the PU administration to stop such incidents in the future.
The meeting also condemned PU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Mujahid Kamran for his alleged derogatory remarks against an ASA member who along with some other members had called on the VC in connection with the police issue a couple of days back.
"The VC should apologise for his irresponsible remarks which are against national unity," the ASA statement reads. ASA Vice President Iftikhar Ahmed Tarar said the VC passed the remarks while alleging him of being behind litigations against the university administration.
According to sources, during the ASA meeting on Monday a controversy had also erupted when the Association's joint secretary Muhammad Sajid spoke against alleged double standards of the ASA leadership, including its President Dr Saeed Ahmed Nagra.
It is learnt the joint secretary was quite critical of ASA president and others, saying they were earlier close to the VC and had defended the administration when police had raided to arrested a senior faculty member, Dr Naseer Ahmed, in December last year.
Muhammad Sajid said he questioned the ASA president on what moral grounds he was against police raids within the university as earlier he had defended administration for police raid for arrested of a faculty member. He said the meeting was unanimous to condemn the VC only if he had passed derogatory remarks against a faculty member.
It is also learnt that all the executive members were not present in the Monday's meeting due to which there was concern among the PU teachers how the resolutions could be termed unanimous. It is also learnt that an executive member, Dr Amanullah Malik, also expressed resentment and protested over the ASA resolutions as he was not present in the meeting.
Dr Malik said that the resolutions were based with mala fide intentions as all the members were not present in the meeting.
When contacted, Dr Nagra said he had not supported the administration when the police had conducted raid on the residence of Dr Naseer. He said out of total 16 executive members only two could not join as they were out of the city. He claimed an invitation was also extended to Dr Malik about the meeting through mobile SMS but he did not show up.
Meanwhile, in a press statement, a PU spokesman termed the ASA statement baseless aimed to provoke outrage. He said the head of administration (the VC) was above any kind of sectarianism and firm believer of Itehad Bain ul Muslimeen. He added that some faculty members were violating the discipline on the behest of the ASA.
The spokesman said some elements were issuing provoking statements for vested interests. He said Iftikhar Tarar was applicant for the post of associate professor and his case was being processed according to the law. He said the university would not allow anyone to violate the law. The News
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