Parliamentary secretary backs students re-enrolment

Islamabad : Parliamentary Secretary for Human Rights Lal Chand Malhi has joined calls for a private university to re-enrol two students expelled over public proposal and embrace, equating the action with moral policing.

Last Thursday, a University of Lahore video went viral showing a girl get down on one knee and propose to her boyfriend with a rose bouquet before the two hug each other with onlookers cheering them along.

As the display of affection by couples, especially unmarried ones, in public is culturally and religiously unacceptable in society, the university expelled the pair.

The action attracted criticism and calls for the re-enrolment of the two students, including from science and technology minister Fawad Chaudhry, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s daughter Bakhtawar Bhutto-Zardari and former Test cricketer Wasim Akram’s wife Shaniera Akram.

Now, human rights parliamentary secretary and MNA of the ruling PTI Lal Chand Malhi has thrown weight behind these voices.

In a letter to the University of Lahore’s vice-chancellor, he resented the ‘overreaction’ of the management to the incident and said the pair should have not been condemned unheard.

“Apparently, both the girl and the boy did not commit such a heinous crime that they were punished so severely and expelled from the university. This would destroy their career and future education opportunities.

“The action can only be termed as [an act of] moral policing. Deviant behaviour of the students should be regulated through counselling. The students’ expulsion was certainly uncalled-for and an evident case of violation of their human rights,” he noted.

The parliamentary secretary said the two had proposed to each other on March 8, International Women’s Day, and that freedom of the right to marry and propose at will were guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Pakistani Constitution and laws.

He added that the ‘extreme action’ of the university had sent a critical message at the national and international levels that it could not tolerate and accept two students proposing each other and that it went against the contravention of justice and would have very negative repercussions for the society.

Lal Chand Malhi said he favoured the ‘moral character building’ as part of curricular and extracurricular activities but didn’t think that actions like expelling students would serve any purpose.