KU faculty give govt more time to catch professor’s killers

Karachi
The Karachi University Teachers’ Society (KUTS), in the wake of the terrorist attack in Safoora Goth which claimed 45 lives earlier in the week, has extended the deadline given to the Sindh government for arresting the killers of Prof Dr Waheed-ur-Rehman.
The deceased was an assistant professor in KU’s mass communication department and was gunned down on the morning of April 29 while on his way to work.
Following his assassination, the KU faculty had given the provincial government until May 15 to catch the killers, after which they had threatened to go on strike and boycott classes.
However, in lieu of the brutal massacre of 45 Ismailis in Safoora tragedy, KUTS has decided to extend the deadline and cut the government a bit of slack, said its general secretary Dr Haris Shoaib.
He said the KUTS will announce its further strategy after holding a meeting at the CM House on Monday.
“Our meeting was scheduled at the CM House on the evening of May 13 but this horrible incident took place in the morning and attention of whole state machinery was diverted towards the tragedy,” he said. “The meeting was subsequently cancelled and now we will meet government representatives on Monday.”
He said the KU faculty was hopeful that the government will give a positive response by expressing its willingness to close the murder case in greater interest of teachers, students and universities of the state.
The demands put forward by the KU faculty also included setting up a judicial commission and a joint investigation team (JIT) to thoroughly probe the murder mystery.
They had also asked the Sindh government to make sure that the bereaved family get compensation amount of Rs50 million by May 15.
Late Prof Waheed-ur-Rehman was commonly known as Yasir Rizvi, his pen name which he adopted during his journalism career.
He was targeted by unidentified men riding a motorcycle near the Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases, in Federal B Area’s Block-16 after leaving his residence in Lateef Square apartments in same area.