ISLAMABAD, Feb 10 Registrar of the National University of Modern Languages (Numl) resigned on Wednesday apparently to avoid making a public apology for beating up a lecturer, which sparked unrelenting protests by the faculty as well as the students.

Brig (retired) Obaidullah Ranjha submitted his resignation to the office of Numl Rector Brig (retired) Aziz Ahmad Khan, who accepted it.

Both the rector and the registrar were not available for comments as their cellphones were switched off.

Lecturer Tahir Malik, however, said he was ready to pardon the registrar, but only if he had tender an apology in front of the students, who had witnessed the nasty incident last week.

“I have no enmity with Brig Ranjha but want my dignity back which he damaged by thrashing me in front of my students,” Mr Malik added.

Discussing political issues and the educational system in the office of Numl's International Relations department's head on February 4, Brig Ranjha and Mr Malik became involved in an altercation. The issue appeared resolved after they along with other faculty members attended a welcome lunch given to new students.

However, some 45 minutes later the registrar returned with two guards and roughed up the lecturer in a corridor.

After the situation heated up and triggered mass protests, Interior Minister Rehman Malik asked the registrar and the lecturer to settle the issue, and it was decided that Brig Ranjha would tender a public apology on February 8. However, he did not fulfil his commitment, which sparked a massive protest by the students and faculty members of the university, who also boycotted classes.

On February 8, the administration announced the closure of the university for a week, apparently in a bid to prevent the students and faculty members from joining the protest movement.

Lecturers of the university, when contacted on Wednesday, said they had called off the protest as their major demand had been fulfilled but in a different manner.

“Our demand was that the registrar should be terminated, but he had himself resigned from the post,” they added.

“We harboured no grudge against the registrar, it was just the matter of a teacher's dignity and prestige,” the lecturers said.

However, they still demanded an inquiry into the irregularities mentioned in the institution's annual report, including the second extension given to the rector.

Over 8,000 students, including 500 foreigners and 60 personnel of armed forces, are enrolled in Numl, which has 350 faculty members, including 50 retired officers of the army, including brigadiers and colonels, and 20 retired bureaucrats.

The institution was established in 1970 on the directives of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, with the name National Institute of Modern Languages. It was set up with an aim to teach government officials, especially officers of the foreign office and the armed forces.

It was under the control of the Quaid-i-Azam University at the time of its inception. Later its affairs were overseen by the Allama Iqbal Open University.

The army took over the charge of the institute in 1981, when Gen Ziaul Haq was in power, after a brawl on the campus. Since then the head of the institution remained a serving or retired army officer of the rank of brigadier or above.

The institution was given the status of a university in December 1999 by former president Pervez Musharraf.