PU Mushaira, IJT’s “moral inspection” causes trouble

The con­clud­ing mushaira of Inter­na­tion­al Pun­jabi Sufi Con­fer­ence, at Pun­jab Uni­ver­si­ty Ori­en­tal Col­lege was dis­rupt­ed by the Isla­mi Jamiat-e-Talba’s activist when they probed the atten­dants for mix­ing up with female stu­dents.

The Mushaira was orga­nized by the Depart­ment of Pun­jabi on March 14 as the con­clud­ing cer­e­mo­ny of Inter­na­tion­al Sufi Con­fer­ence and was held at the old cam­pus of PU; Vice Chan­cel­lor PU Dr. Mujahid Kam­ran, fac­ul­ty mem­bers and stu­dents of all depart­ments attend­ed the mushaira. Accord­ing to sources dur­ing and after the mushaira IJT activists stopped stu­dents who came to attend the mushaira with their female class mates. The IJTians checked the stu­dent ID cards and forced the stu­dents to stay away from “immoral gath­er­ing with girls.”
“We thought that we were inter­ro­gat­ed as if we had done some heinous crime, I was with my class­mates when the IJT hooli­gans threat­ened me for walk­ing my female class­mate to the mushaira.” A stu­dent on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty told Laal­tain. Many oth­er stu­dents were com­plain­ing for being humil­i­at­ed and harassed in front of their friends and the guests from India.

“It is nec­es­sary for the sanc­ti­ty or moral val­ues and to pre­vent our hon­or from any pos­si­ble moral cor­rup­tion; it is our job to pro­tect our cul­ture and reli­gion” IJT sources respond­ed on the inci­dent.

A stu­dent Aslam Ali of com­mu­ni­ca­tion stud­ies also crit­i­cized the audi­ence for tak­ing mushaira as a “pic­nic”. “Mushaira is a tra­di­tion and has its mod­esties and pro­to­cols, but most of the stu­dents were hoot­ing and pass­ing com­ments, which real­ly was dis­turb­ing.” A few stu­dents com­ment­ed on the line­up of poets and appre­ci­at­ed the effort to con­duct a Pun­jabi Mushaira. “Most of the renowned poets were not invit­ed, but it was good to have poets from India and some new faces.” Anam spoke to Laal­tain. “Most of the times we have Urdu poets but it was good to lis­ten to our moth­er lan­guage” she added. Anwar Masood, Nashir Naqvi (India), Anwar Masood, Shahid Gul, Dr Younas Ahqar, Sar­wat Mohi-ud-din, Majeed Khawar Mal­cy, Dr Abbad Nabeel, Adal Min­has, Bushra Khazeen, Tahir Abdal, Imran Naqvi, Shahzad Hus­sain, Sul­tan Kharvi, Azaz Ahmed Azar, Tal­ib Jatooi, Baba Naj­mi, Sharif Anjum, Zul­fiqar Zul­fi, Man­zoor Jugnu, Aqeel Sha­mi, Gulzar Bukhari, Humayun Shahid and oth­ers pre­sent­ed their poet­ry.