ISLAMABAD, Oct 25: The executive council of the Academic Staff Association (ASA) of the Quaid-i-Azam University has urged the vice chancellor to constitute an independent inquiry committee to probe into the causes of the administrative failure resulting in violent incidents on the campus recently, official sources told Dawn.
In a letter to the vice-chancellor, the Association has demanded that the findings of the inquiry committee should be made public and those responsible for the incident should be clearly identified so as to ensure a peaceful atmosphere on the campus in future.
The letter also mentioned that there was a growing feeling among the faculty that the vice chancellor had confined himself to some favourite faculty members for consultation on crucial issues and didn’t listen to the opinion of the majority. It also requested the vice-chancellor to keep all channels of information open to get a wider and clearer picture of the university affairs.
The executive council of Association in its meeting held on October 20 dilated on the present law and order situation and the overall functioning of the university. A similar effort had also been made a few months ago with the hope that the authorities concerned would give due attention to the community’s opinion, but of no avail.
The Association also suggested that allotment of rooms in the boys hostels must exclusively be done by the hostel management, purely on merit and there must be no role of any pressure group of students in this regard. “The hostel management should take prompt and effective action in case of violation of rules and regulations and random checking of hostel rooms must be done periodically or whenever needed to search for guns, drugs, alcohol and any unauthorized occupant.”
It further said that messes in the hostels must be regulated, because they had been massively misused by some student groups to generate funds for their unauthorized activities. “The hostel messes may be run by the private contractors like those in the cafeteria and canteens around the campus and regulated by the hostel administration.”
On the other hand, when Controller Examinations Dr Dushka Haider Syed was contacted, she said as the ASA’s elections were round the corner - in November - its incumbent office-bearers were coming up with political ploys.
Defending the vice-chancellor, UAG Isani, she said his office was open to everybody for such suggestions and it was an accusation that he had confined himself to a handful of faculty members.
She said the ongoing problem was a product of years and would, therefore, take some time for solution. She said all these suggestions proffered by the ASA had already been accepted and the Association was only trying to score some points before the coming elections.