QAU reopens after deployment of police

ISLAMABAD: After 16 days forced closure by a group of students against the expulsion of their colleagues, higher fee and poor facilities, the Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) reopened on Friday with the police personnel deployed on and around the campus in large numbers.

However, the academic activities will resume at the country’s premier varsity on Monday.

The administration claimed that the campus reopening was decided during its talks with protesters, which were facilitated by the district administration on Thursday night. It said it had agreed to withdraw 10 per cent increase in fee and would ensure the provision of the requisite facilities to day scholars and hostellers, but would leave the call for the restoration of the expelled students to the syndicate to decide.

The administration insisted that the students called off the strike after ‘successful’ dialogue. Protesting the recent expulsion of their colleagues over campus violence, higher fee, poor facilities and shortage of hostels since October 4, the Quaidian Students Federation activists had forcibly stopped teachers from taking classes and locked administration offices.

They had also blocked the university’s main road and refused to allow buses to ply on campus. The administration had expelled some students representing two ethnic councils over an armed clash in May this year, while some were either rusticated or fined.

On Friday morning, students and faculty members reached the university in large numbers. However, the administration informed them that academic activities would resume on Monday. The students seeking admission to the university were also seen at the relevant departments checking the merit lists displayed there.

Also in the day, the syndicate, the university’s supreme decision-making body, met to discuss the protesting students’ demands. It decided that it would examine the May campus violence again, question the relevant students, teachers and staff members, and order strict disciplinary action against the culpable ones.

The syndicate said it won’t succumb to the pressure tactics of the protesting students over their colleagues’ expulsion and would continue taking decisions for the good of the university.   The Quaidian Students Federation rejected the syndicate’s stand and said its activists would go on strike yet again on Monday to seek the immediate reversal of the expulsion of students.