PESHAWAR, Dec 19: Judge Jamaluddin Khan of the additional district and sessions court on Monday awarded seven-year jail terms to two employees of a private university for falsifying their academic records and fined them Rs700,000 each.

The judge said the prosecution had proved its case against the accused by producing evidence that they had deceived various students.

The Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) crimes cell arrested Ghulam Mohiuddin Sajjad, coordinator of Orient University, and Mian Muhammad Irshad, an employee of the said university, in response to a complaint filed by some university students.

The students had also called for action against the university officials who had issued them bogus bachelor of computer science degrees.

But the FIA failed to arrest the university’s owner Dr Khalid Hussain and his registrar wife Mubashira Khalid and the couple were declared absconders.

An FIA team headed by Inspector Shahid Ilyas raided the premises of the university on July 9, 2003, and arrested the officials. The team also recovered bogus degrees of an American university and many blank pads and stamps of different universities.

The FIA alleged that on the address of the university, 2-Gulmohar Lane, University Town, the said college administration had been running eight different types of institutions. An FIR was registered against them under sections 419, 420, 468 and 471 of the Pakistan Penal Code.