LAHORE, May 19: Following the Punjab University administration and police’s failure to stop the Islami Jamiat-i-Tulaba activists from acting as organisers of the PU Book and IT Fair 2006 on the very first day, the university called in extra police force on Friday afternoon that dispersed all Jamiat activists.

Different SPs and DSPs remained present at the venue till the close of the day and the IJT activists continued to move around the book fair venue without displaying Jamiat’s insignias, badges or stickers. The IJT’s union office was also closed.

The plainclothesmen also whisked away three IJT activists on Friday afternoon. The whereabouts of all the three activists could not be known till the filing of this report late in the night.

The IJT leaders later demanded that the police should release the detained leaders otherwise they would besiege the Governor’s House, Punjab Assembly and VC House.

Despite tension and presence of heavy police force on the campus, the fair was thronged by students and visitors. According to booksellers, they were selling books on a daily basis.

In order to take stock of the situation, the PU Deans’ Committee held its meeting which was chaired by PU VC Arshad Mahmood. Different deans presented the resume of the situation regarding ‘humiliation and insult’ of teachers by IJT activists.

Speaking on the occasion, IG Police Major Ziaul Hasan condemned the action of IJT activists who tried to create problems at the book fair. He assured the deans committee that strict action would be taken against the persons responsible for this incident.

The committee also noted with great concern that various activists of the IJT, including PU IJT Nazim Salman Ayub, IJT Punjab Nazim Allah Bakhsh Laghari Fakhar Manzoor Al-Mani, Muhammad Akhtar, Muhammad Amer, Qazi Imdadullah, Muhammad Awais, Imran Ashraf, Afzal Ahmad, Rana Muhammad Khalil and Muhammad Ayub, who had already been expelled from the university and declared persona non-grata, were still trespassing on the university campus and were involved in hooliganism, sabotage, hooting and pushing of senior faculty members, bringing outsiders to the university campus, creating disturbance and insulting and abusing senior faculty members, threatening the university staff on duties with dire consequences, and bullying and terrorising female students, extortion of money and unauthorised collection of rent and funds from book sellers and creating harassment in the campus.

The police officials assured the committee that interference of all these persons would be stopped forthwith.

The PU deans committee also decided to invite Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool as chief guest to the fair’s closing ceremony on Saturday (today) at 8pm.

Besides all the nine deans, the meeting was attended by IGP Ziaul Hasan, additional IG Police Khalid Farooq, DIG (Operations) Amir Zulfiqar Khan and SP Sadar Imran Arshad.

Meanwhile, PU IJT leaders held a Press conference at the Lahore Press Club and demanded that the government should immediately release Nazim Salman Ayub, Tulaba Taqreebat Committee chairman Muhammad Ayub and Rana Zahid who were arrested for holding the fair.

Speaking at the news conference, PU IJT secretary-general Rana Khalil Ahmad, central secretary information Abdul Wadood and PU IJT information secretary Imran Shahid said the police were not even disclosing the whereabouts of the detained leaders.

They demanded that a heavy contingent of police deployed on the campus should be withdrawn and university registrar Prof Dr Naeem Khan should also be removed.