LAHORE: The Student Action Committee (SAC) on Wednesday announced that it would expand its protest to all parts of the country in reaction to the arrests and torture of students in Lahore.

Under the banner of the SAC, the Haqooq Khalq Movement (HKM) and Progressive Students Collective (PSC) leadership jointly addressed a press conference at the press club on the issue of on-campus examinations and police torture and cases against students.

PSC President Muhsin Abdali announced a nationwide protest of students against police torture and cases on Friday (Jan 29). He said the students of the city would gather at Charing Cross on The Mall on Friday for demonstration. He appealed to the students from across Pakistan to organise protest rallies and demonstrations against brutal use of force and torture against peaceful students.

He demanded that all examinations should be held online and the tuition fee of the private universities should be reduced by half for this year.

Maryam expresses solidarity with protesters

“Our protest was absolutely peaceful,” he said.

PSC Lahore President Zubair Siddique said he was targeted by police and brutally baton- charged.

“I was unconscious for a few hours at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Jinnah Hospital,” he said. He said his main fault was to appeal the authorities to go for online exams. He said students were not terrorists but they were labelled as terrorists.

Condemning police cases against the protesting students, Haqooq Khalq Movement’s Farooq Tariq said the private universities were not used to any resistance of the students and they used private security guards in the presence of police to torture the students.

He demanded immediate withdrawal of police cases against students and release of all the 36 arrested students.

Mr Tariq also demanded restoration of student unions and implementation of constitutional right of assembly.

PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz also condemned the attack on protesting students and showed solidarity with them.

She tweeted, “From students receiving laptops, scholarships and appreciations to students being baton-charged and beaten black and blue to a point where many are admitted to intensive care. We are clearly on a downward trajectory. I stand with my students. Stop using naked force.”

On Tuesday night, University of Central Punjab’s Chief Security Officer Naveed Mukhtar lodged a complaint against 95 nominated and 400 to 500 unidentified students for threatening the UCP administration with dire consequences, pelting stones, damaging property, torturing and injuring security guards, setting the property on fire by throwing petrol bombs and blocking the roads in and around the campus for several hours and creating problems for them.

The Nawab Town police registered a case against these students under sections 452, 506/B, 148, 149, 427, 342, 290, 291, 440, 436, 269, and 270 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and 16 of the Punjab Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance 1960. Police took 36 of the students into custody and on Wednesday afternoon, presented them before a judicial magistrate in Model Town court to seek 14-day physical remand. However, the judicial magistrate handed over the students to police on three-day physical remand.

Earlier, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) had taken notice of the concerns of the students of some universities that their examinations should be conducted online.

Published in Dawn, January 28th, 2021