Protest planned against AWKUM for ‘occupying’ college land

PESHAWAR: College Professors and Lecturers Association has announced to launch a protest sit-in to force the management of Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan (AWKUM) to vacate the properties of Government Postgraduate College Mardan in the light of court, local administration and Higher Education Department’s decisions so that the problem of classroom shortage in the college could be overcome.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the divisional chapter of the association held here with its president Prof Hayat Shah in the chair.

The meeting was attended by other office-bearers of the association, including Dr Ihsanullah, Prof Ziauddin, Prof Aurangzeb Shirazi, Prof Hasanur Rahman, Prof Hussain Akbar, Prof Dr Iftikhar Ahmed, Prof Dr Sulaiman Shah, Prof Noor and others.

The participants decided to hold a protest camp at the gate of the “occupied building”. Similarly, protest campaign will be started in the entire division to force the university administration to obey the court orders. The protest campaign will continue until the handover of the building to the college.

The meeting pointed out that billions of rupees have been spent on construction of a much-facilitated spacious building of the university. But even after shifting to its new building, the university was reluctant to vacate the college’s building.

The participants of the meeting alleged that the university has illegally occupied the college building for the last 14 years and was reluctant to give it back despite construction of own spiraling building on a spacious land, court decisions and governments directives. It was decided to devise a strategy for taking back the building and land of the college from the university in view of the shortage of classrooms for the students in the college.

The participants of the meeting said the district administration, secretary for Higher Education Department and other quarters concerned have already directed the university administration to vacate the building and give it back to the college but to no avail.