TOBA TEK SINGH: A woman died and a child was injured when the roof of a house adjacent to a seminary near Narrol police post in Kabirwala, Khanewal district, collapsed on Monday.

Local residents removed the heavy debris and recovered the body of the wife of the seminary’s administrator, Mufti Muhammad Asif, as well as their injured minor son.

The boy was shifted to the Kabirwala THQ hospital.

Reports said the roof was in a dilapidated condition.

Also, in Faisalabad’s neighbourhood Chiniotian, near Gol Masjid on Samundri Road, the roof of a room in a house caved in, injuring Shahnaz Bibi. She was taken to the DHQ hospital for treatment.

ROBBERY: Gunmen looted Rs300,000 and valuables worth hundreds of thousands of rupees from an ice factory in Mandi Bachiana, Jaranwala tehsil, Faisalabad, on Sunday night.

Reports said that five gunmen entered the factory after midnight and tied up three security guards with ropes. They stayed in the factory for four hours and took away copper wires from electric transformers, a UPS system, batteries, a motorcycle and other goods.

SECURITY ISSUES: A meeting was held in Faisalabad on Monday under the chairmanship of Dr Shoaib Suddal, head of the One-Man Commission for Minority Rights, to address the security issues surrounding minority places of worship.

Dr Suddal stressed the importance of implementing the five per cent reserved quota for minorities in government jobs and called for a report on the provision of scholarships to minority students in educational institutions.

He said that at least one minority centre be established in every district, ensuring

that complaints related to minority rights are directed to the appropriate forum for swift resolution.

Dr Suddal also commended efforts for the speedy rehabilitation of victims following the Jaranwala tragedy.

UAF: Prof Dr Muhammad Sarwar Khan, pro-vice chancellor, assumed the charge of University of Agriculture, Faisalabad (UAF) vice chancellor on Monday after the retirement of Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan.

He is an alumnus of Cambridge University and an internationally well-known molecular biotechnologist. He has introduced two high-yielding and potential varieties of genetically modified sugarcane, including insect-resistant transgenic sugarcane and herbicide-tolerant transgenic sugarcane.

He pioneered the plant chloroplast genetic engineering approach in the UK, Finland, and Pakistan. He is also a pioneer in expressing green fluorescent protein in plant chloroplasts, with his research findings published in Nature Biotechnology and The Plant Journal.

He is the first to develop plastid transformation in monocots, including rice and sugarcane. Additionally, he developed efficient and reproducible regeneration protocols for rice, sugarcane, and carrots.

He has also devised methods for regenerating plants from in vitro grown rice and sugarcane to help cells sort out and improve homoplasmy levels of transgenic chloroplasts.

His research interests include functional analyses of chloroplast genes through reverse genetics and the expression of foreign genes in chloroplasts to confer agronomic traits such as insect-pest resistance, salinity tolerance, and herbicide tolerance.

According to a press release, he said that quality education and research were prerequisites for the development of a knowledge-based economy.

The university is leaving no stone unturned to ensure quality manpower and tangible research focused on solutions for the farming community, industry, and society.

He added that UAF is concentrating on academia, research, agricultural and rural development, internationalisation, and strengthening academic-industry linkages.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2024