LAHORE, Feb 29: Former Punjab University psychology and applied psychology department chairman Dr Mian Aftab has made a representation to Governor Khalid Maqbool alleging that the incumbent chairperson, Prof Dr Yasmin N. Farooqi, is involved in “plagiarism of serious kind”.
In a representation sent along with relevant documents on Friday, Dr Aftab stated that Prof Farooqi had supervised a thesis titled “Pre-post evaluation of depression and anxiety in patients undergoing mastectomy and hysterectomy”. On the basis of the thesis, he said, a student -- Alia Shah -- was awarded degree of MSc. He said Prof Farooqi published the same into journals under the title “Depression and anxiety in mastectomy cases” in Illness, Crisis and Loss Vol. 13(3) 267-278, 2005 and “Depression and anxiety in patients undergoing hysterectomy” in Journal of Pakistan Psychiatric Society without acknowledging Alia Shah's contribution.As goes the established norms in research, the work that primarily belonged to Alia Shah should have written her name as the first author of this paper or have due citation of her MSc thesis.
“This act of Dr Yasmin Farooqi is highly unethical, where an author of the thesis has not been given any acknowledgement of her work. This case is by all standards plagiarism in the light of the policy of the Higher Education Commission,” he stated.
In fact, Dr Aftab stated, “she herself is involved in unethical practices as her entire work is based on students research/dissertations, undertaken during their academic years as practical assignments and which are being published by her without acknowledging the students’ efforts and without the permission of the department to bag high research claims”.The complainant attached two letters written by students, Nayla Maqsood and Safia Mahr. Ms Nayla had stated in her ‘undertaking’ to the then department chairman that she had conducted her research under the supervision of Dr Yasmin Farooqi. She said she had not permitted the supervisor in writing to use her name in the paper. The other student, Safia, had stated in a letter that Prof Farooqi did not return the copy of her thesis and furthermore got an undertaking that she had worked on her project.
Dr Aftab also apprised the governor/chancellor that a complaint about Prof Farooqi's plagiarism had already been made to the HEC through executive director Sohail H. Naqvi on Feb 2 last year.
Dr Aftab regretted saying, “It has been more than a year that no action has been initiated by the HEC on my complaint despite my repeated requests. I am really sorry to point out that attitude of executive director is highly biased and double standards have been adopted by him on plagiarism cases. In case to the best of my knowledge, the executive director is actively pursuing a fabricated case against me in connivance with the authorities of the Punjab University”.
The complainant also told the governor that the present authority was holding grudge against him for the last two decades and complaints in this regard were already on record. He attached two letters that he had written to the then vice-chancellor on Sept 9 and 16, 1992.In the Sept 16 letter (an important document), Dr Aftab had taken the stance that Dr Mujahid Kamran was interfering in the affairs of the psychology department as his wife was the department chairperson. The other letter (dispatched earlier on Sept 9) stated that the chairperson was biased against him and requested that some other competent person be entrusted the task to write his ACR for current and future years.
Dr Aftab requested the governor that this case should be dealt with on a priority and he be given an opportunity of being heard in person.
Meanwhile, Dr Aftab told Dawn that he had given another representation to the governor that the plagiarism inquiry committee, headed by University of Health Sciences vice-chancellor Prof Dr Malik Husain Mubbashar, which was constituted to assess a complaint of plagiarism against him, had shown bias by going beyond its jurisdiction, and extended the chargesheet.
Fearing that the committee would give him unfair and injudicious treatment, he said, he had requested the governor to constitute some other committee. He said he had also communicated his representation to the UHS VC, stating that he did not find it appropriate to submit any reply to the existing committee till the chancellor’s decision. Still, he said, the committee, led by Prof Mubbashar, gave his recommendations to the chancellor without waiting for a decision.
Interestingly, Dr Aftab has also alleged that the plagiarism policy given by the HEC is itself a clear case of “verbatim plagiarism” as it is downloaded from different websites and issued as its plagiarism policy.
