LAHORE, May 18: Deciding not to ‘frighten’ the Punjab University higher-ups by announcing a new date of book fair, the Islami Jamiat Tulaba has offered a ‘conditional’ support to the administration-backed event scheduled from May 27 to 29.

The book fair remained a bone of contention between the PU administration and the IJT this year too, making an educational event a political activity. The IJT had announced holding a three-day book fair last week and the administration vowed to resist it.

It is for first time the PU, which is one of the oldest universities in Asia, had to be closed for four days and the administration had to evict boarders to thwart an event like book fair, inviting criticism from a cross-section of society.

PU IJT Nazim Zahid Naveed told Dawn that after the varsity administration’s decision to hold book fair on May 27-29, the Jamiat had decided not to go for a separate one. He said: “The PU students having association with the IJT would facilitate the administration in holding the event provided it made them part of the programme.”

Though the varsity had earlier ‘officially’ announced that it would involve the representatives of “all students’ wings” in the event, it had to go back on its word after some of the participants in the deans’ committee meeting last week expressed reservations.

Zahid Naveed said the IJT had been organising the fair at the varsity for the last 20 years and it was a ‘positive’ activity and nobody should have objection to it. He said the IJT had supported the appointment of a ‘teacher-VC’ because it had faced hard time during the last eight-year tenure of a retired military officer.

“Now the VC who is from the teachers’ community has been acting like his predecessor by following his policies against the promotion of healthy co-curricular activities on the campus,” he said and added a remark: “hearts can’t be won through force”.

A senior teacher told Dawn that the teachers were not happy the way the administration dealt with the issue. He said most of the deans were ‘not consulted’ before taking the decision of such an important nature. “Prior to the start of various postgraduation examinations the waste of one full academic week is also a serious cause of concern for both students and teachers,” he added.