The University of Karachi’s (KU) administration expelled on Monday a student who invited supermodel Ayyan for the inauguration of a business venture at the campus by the varsity’s students in August this year. Admission of Araib Khan, a student in the Department of Public Administration has been cancelled and he will not be allowed to take admission in any course of the university in future, according to a notification of the registrar of the university, Dr Moazzam Ali Khan.“You are found guilty of damaging the reputation of the Department of Public Administration as well as the prestige of the university,” reads the notification.He has also been banned from entering the university’s premises. Ayyan’s visit to the university came weeks after she was released from Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail- arrested on charges of money laundering by customs’ officials in March. In a highly publicized, almost fixated case $506,800 were recovered from her luggage. She spent four months behind bars before securing bail.
Her visit created an uproar and the university administration was heavily criticised for inviting to the campus someone accused of criminal activity, with a case sub-judice. However, knowing the dynamics of corruption in the country, was her presence that scandalous, that two students were deprived of their right to education? Many a politician has cases pending in the courts against them. Would a student be expelled for inviting say, any of the 300 high level bureaucrats and politicians that the NAB is probing? Is it because she is not a politician but a TV and fashion celebrity that then makes for her presence to be against the integrity of an institution? Are politicians more “respectable”?
If the administration really had a problem, why did they not stop the event from taking place? It seems like quite a convenient way of getting the media off their backs, while putting the whole blame on a student. The two students have denied these university claims and said that they had not received any notification or official statement in regard to the conduct they were supposed to follow. Reprimanding the student would have sufficed and social medic gossip would have waned in just a few days.
pk.shafaqna.com
