November 10, 2003	Monday	Ramazan 14, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 9: A midnight raid by a heavy contingent of capital police and district administration on the hostels of the Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) failed to find a single weapon and illegal students on Sunday.

QAU vice-chancellor, provost, registrar, controller examinations, deans of faculties, senior wardens and officer incharge of student affairs were present during the raid, which lasted from 1am till 3:50am on Sunday.

Officer incharge student affairs assistant professor GSK Niazi told Dawn that the operation was kept secret to flush out weapons and any outsiders staying illegally in the hostels.

Some 120 policemen, supervised by ASP, DSP, AC rural and AC Saddar cordoned off the hostels and carried out a room-to-room search, said Mr Niazi.

According to provost Dr Salman Malick, the “search operation” was taken in view of persistent rumours that the hostels were overflowing with weapons and a number of illegal persons were staying in them.

“Two ex-students were found staying in the hostels but it would be unfair to say they were staying illegally as they had legitimate reasons to be in the hostels,” said Dr Malick.

“One of them was a student of MPhil who had just submitted his thesis,” he said. According to Prof Niazi, the students stayed in their rooms during the operation and no untoward incident happened.

“We searched each and every room, bathrooms, balconies and found no weapons in the hostels,” he said.

In response to a question about taking any steps to ban the student councils formed on provincial basis, the provost said as a first step the control of mess in the hostels had been taken away from the students.

He said the university was formulating a strategy to counter the problem of student councils. The history of recent incidents at the QAU is an evidence of the nuisance value of these councils which have resulted in loss of lives on the campus, he added.

“It was thought that the councils would die their own death over a course of time but that has not happened. It is not possible to charge sheet the students for belonging to a particular provincial council as evidence of membership is hard to find,” Dr Malick said.