Despite another episode of IJT Hooliganism, CEES Sports Gala Continues

The annu­al sports gala at Col­lege of Earth and Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ences (CEES), Pun­jab Uni­ver­si­ty con­tin­ues under the pro­tec­tion of police after an attempt by Isla­mi Jamiat-e-Talba’s (IJT) to force­ful­ly stop the event and dis­perse stu­dents. Accord­ing to Laal­tain cor­re­spon­dent, Naz­im of Insti­tute of Social and Cul­tur­al Stud­ies Rab Nawaz with oth­er IJT activists includ­ing some stu­dents expelled ear­li­er from the PU intrud­ed the CEES premis­es and forced stu­dents and fac­ul­ty mem­bers to stop the event. Accord­ing to PU spokesperson’s press release, IJT activists first sent a threat­en­ing note to the prin­ci­pal of CEES in which they demand­ed to stop the “immoral activ­i­ties” but the col­lege admin­is­tra­tion did not suc­cumb to their pres­sure.

“Some 10 to 15 IJT activists tres­passed into the col­lege ground and mis­be­haved with senior fac­ul­ty mem­bers. They thrashed the fac­ul­ty mem­bers, snatched mobile phones and purs­es both from male and female stu­dents. More than two dozen teach­ers and stu­dents were held hostage in this man­ner”, PU spokesper­son said.

Accord­ing to Laal­tain sources, IJT activists had to leave the col­lege premis­es when the stu­dents start­ed to resist and pro­tect their teach­ers and fel­low stu­dents. Law enforce­ments were called to avoid any fur­ther assault for Jami­at activists.

IJT on the oth­er hand denied such alle­ga­tions. IJT’s Naz­im Hafiz Abdul Muqeet while speak­ing to an Eng­lish Dai­ly said that CEES admin­is­tra­tion arranged music and dance event and the stu­dents who object­ed to it were beat­en. “Teach­ers should not pro­mote a cul­ture of impu­dence in the uni­ver­si­ty”, Mr. Muqeet added.

“Isla­mi Jami­at-e-Tal­ba has no right to inter­fere in our lives what­so­ev­er. It’s our life and we bet­ter know our val­ues and lim­i­ta­tions. We were not com­mit­ting any crime, we were just hav­ing fun.” A stu­dent from CEES spoke to Laal­tain. “I will nev­er feel safe any­more. VC should take action against these thugs” She added on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty.

Accord­ing to PU Spokesper­son, “The mat­ter has been brought into the notice of edu­ca­tion min­is­ter of Pun­jab, Mr. Mash­hood Ahmad Khan. Any attempt to dam­age aca­d­e­m­ic envi­ron­ment would be dealt in accor­dance with law. PU admin­is­tra­tion would take strict dis­ci­pli­nary action against IJT activists.”
CEES has pre­vi­ous­ly been under attack by IJT activists when the lat­ter were expelled by the dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee for vio­lat­ing uni­ver­si­ty reg­u­la­tions. Mr. Iftikhar Baloch then chair­per­son of the col­lege was bru­tal­ly assault­ed by Jami­at in 2010.