July 14, 2008	Monday	Rajab 10, 1429

HYDERABAD, July 13: Sindh Agriculture University Employees Union activists held a demonstration outside the press club on Sunday, demanding removal of Vice-Chancellor Dr Basheer Ahmed Shaikh, accusing him of being involved in malpractices, nepotism and favouritism.

The employees who have been on strike for over a week under the banner of the Employees Action Committee alleged that the vice-chancellor had appointed an army of retired professors and officers, in addition to a large number of his close relatives.

They accused him of appointing his three sons, a daughter, a niece as well as a large number of relatives and relatives of his cronies.

They said that having completed his tenure in 2004 the vice-chancellor had been granted extension till 2011.

The university employees had voted for his removal in a referendum held recently, which annoyed him so much that he has started taking punitive action against the leaders of the committee.

The committee leaders said that the president of the Employees Welfare Trust, Karam Ali Punnu, had been placed under suspension and a false case had been registered against 20 other employees.

They said that they accepted the registrar’s challenge for a public debate and were prepared to hold it at the press club where they would produce documentary evidence of alleged malpractices of the vice-chancellor and his team.

They demanded dismissal of the vice-chancellor and appealed to the chairman of HEC Dr Attaur Rehman to appoint an impartial inquiry committee to probe misuse of tens of millions of rupees spent on different projects.

MUET: The newly appointed office-bearers of the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology chapter of the People’s Labour Bureau have said that the university has been in a deep crisis for many years.

The bureau’s president, Rahim Bux Kalhoro, senior vice-president, Barkatullah Soomro and others said at a news conference at the press club that the lava had been simmering for all these years, which would burst out anytime if the employees’ problems were not solved.