FOUR persons … were injured in a firing exchange between two student organisations [the All Pakistan Muttahida Students Organisation and the Pakhtun Student Federation] at the Federal Urdu University of Karachi. …This issue was still lingering when the students of the Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, unleashed their wrath on the journalists of Multan. They attacked the Multan Press Club building and damaged vehicles … in the parking area. At least eight journalists were injured (one person later died of injuries).
The students of Multan were protesting against the non-recognition of the university's department by the Council of Veterinary Sciences. They had come in university buses and kept the very busy Abdali Road blocked for a very long time. Meanwhile, an ambulance with a patient could not get through to the hospital, on which a journalist requested the students to let the vehicle pass. The students not only refused to do so but also slapped the journalist and attacked the club building…. They left the scene before the police arrived but later some 34 students were arrested.
Karachi and Multan are hundreds of miles away from each other but the situation created by students is almost identical. …Usually university students are considered the cream of the student community with whom is associated the future of the country. No doubt they are passing through an emotion-packed period of their lives but if a human life is targeted it means that there is a criminal twist to emotions. If [the matter concerns younger] students, the teachers are generally to blame; but here the question is of grownup young men … responsible for their individual and collective actions. Unfortunately, the books in the hands of students have been replaced by guns. They have lost all sense of human value. To block traffic has become routine, but to stop patients from reaching hospitals and continued hooliganism is the most despicable way of protest. …This cannot be called a human attitude; one wonders whether the country is inhabited by human beings or beasts? — (June 16)
Selected and translated by S.T.M.