Need for an operation clean-up against the IJT militia in Punjab University
Once again, the Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT) is in the news for all the wrong reasons. Their list of offences is long and exhaustive, and their thug-like hold over the Punjab University (PU) has devastated this once premier institution. Their latest foray into the eradication of ‘vice’ has prompted these goons to barge into the canteen of the university’s Institute of Communication Studies (ICT) and audaciously demand that male and female students refrain from sitting together. Taking it a step further, they are badgering for a wall to be constructed to ensure complete segregation. Students from the ICT are vehemently defying this outright attack on social norms and rightly so. However, the PU administration has yet to do anything substantial about this state-within-a-state situation.
In increasingly intolerant societies such as ours, educational institutes hold the only remaining vestiges of liberal culture and reform. With a mafia like the IJT virtually reigning over the campus, all efforts at producing an enlightened, contemporary generation of professionals bite the dust. Such has been the case since the time of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto when then Governor Ghulam Mustafa Khar decided that the strong leftist tradition of the university did not fit into his increasingly right wing policies. Khar was assigned the task of countering the left by aiding and bolstering this religious group, the IJT. Many liberals left the university and the rule of the IJT was consolidated.
However, we must now acknowledge that as a nation reaping the misery of fundamentalism, it is now unacceptable to endorse or even overlook the IJT and their mafia rule. From beating up students whose only crime is talking to the opposite gender, opposing recreational activities and maliciously countering every attempt at progress and modernisation, the IJT is a medeival throwback. It is time the PU authorities and the government cracked down on an organisation that is as radically motivated as the very Taliban who are bombing us to kingdom come.
A recent “Shining Star Competition” organised by the IJT for the university’s deserving students has been disallowed by the PU administration. A welcome move, but we urge a more direct ‘hit’ to this militia; we cannot endorse Taliban ideologies in Pakistan anymore, no matter where they flourish.
Source: Daily Times
Extremism in any form and at any level is dangerous. Especially when it’s among students who are supposed to be the leaders after some years. In my opinion such active involvement of students in politics should be closely monitored and supervised by more liberal political forces.
Attention LUBP! Your blog’s Tag “Jamaat-e-Islami” is infected with virus, please clean your website:
Campus intimidation Dawn Editorial Monday, 22 Mar, 2010
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/editorial/campus-intimidation-230
The closure of the University of Peshawar and all the educational institutions situated on the campus ought to be taken as a serious warning about the manner in which the country’s youth is splitting along ideological, ethnic and other faultlines.
The closure was announced on Friday after violence broke out following the death of a student, Adnan Abdul Qadir, who died after being severely beaten by members of the Islami Jamiat Talaba. Upon hearing of Qadir’s death, members of the Pakhtun Students Federation and the Bannu Students Federation launched protests against the IJT which, unsurprisingly, turned violent and ended with protesters smashing their way into the rooms of the students nominated in the case and damaging university property.
Such loss of control on the part of supposedly educated university students is certainly a cause for concern. But more shocking is the reason why Qadir was attacked: he had been playing music inside his hostel room. The case is indicative not only of the manner in which increasingly extremist rightwing groups are consolidating their self-appointed position as ‘guardians’ of their peers’ morality, but also of the general citizenry’s frustration with this state of affairs. It does not help that in such incidents of harassment, the state and other authorities are seen as doing little. Cases of intimidation, both minor and severe, on university campuses across the country are common, after all. And the IJT has over the decades emerged as a powerful and increasingly violent rightwing body operating in this sphere.
If measures are not taken to arrest this trend, it could spell disaster for the future. Arguably, Qadir’s peers would not have resorted to such unbridled rage had they had the confidence that his assailants would be brought to book. The police charged nine IJT students for the initial assault, and reportedly a murder case has also been registered after Qadir’s death. All the persons nominated are absconding, though; if justice is not served, this will be taken as further evidence that citizens have no method other than violent agitation of airing their resentment against intimidation and harassment.
Campus intimidation
Dawn Editorial
Monday, 22 Mar, 2010
Cases of intimidation, both minor and severe, on university campuses across the country are common. –Photo by AP
EDITORIAL
NUML incident
NUML incident
The closure of the University of Peshawar and all the educational institutions situated on the campus ought to be taken as a serious warning about the manner in which the country’s youth is splitting along ideological, ethnic and other faultlines.
The closure was announced on Friday after violence broke out following the death of a student, Adnan Abdul Qadir, who died after being severely beaten by members of the Islami Jamiat Talaba. Upon hearing of Qadir’s death, members of the Pakhtun Students Federation and the Bannu Students Federation launched protests against the IJT which, unsurprisingly, turned violent and ended with protesters smashing their way into the rooms of the students nominated in the case and damaging university property.
Such loss of control on the part of supposedly educated university students is certainly a cause for concern. But more shocking is the reason why Qadir was attacked: he had been playing music inside his hostel room. The case is indicative not only of the manner in which increasingly extremist rightwing groups are consolidating their self-appointed position as ‘guardians’ of their peers’ morality, but also of the general citizenry’s frustration with this state of affairs. It does not help that in such incidents of harassment, the state and other authorities are seen as doing little. Cases of intimidation, both minor and severe, on university campuses across the country are common, after all. And the IJT has over the decades emerged as a powerful and increasingly violent rightwing body operating in this sphere.
If measures are not taken to arrest this trend, it could spell disaster for the future. Arguably, Qadir’s peers would not have resorted to such unbridled rage had they had the confidence that his assailants would be brought to book. The police charged nine IJT students for the initial assault, and reportedly a murder case has also been registered after Qadir’s death. All the persons nominated are absconding, though; if justice is not served, this will be taken as further evidence that citizens have no method other than violent agitation of airing their resentment against intimidation and harassment.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/editorial/campus-intimidation-230