A clash between Islami Jamiat-e-Talba and Pnjabi Students’ Association resulted in injuries to at least five students including females yesterday at Karachi University. Police officials, however, said that no student was hurt as no arms were used during the clash, adding a few students received sticks and baton injuries, The Nation reported. Following the clash, extra contingent of law enforcers reached the site and took control of the situation. The KU campus security adviser, Dr M Zubair, said, “A few boys and girls were playing cricket together, when some IJT members attacked them and injured some of them. I personally rushed to the site, however none of the students was found seriously injured.” Originally conceived as a student-based Islamic evangelical outfit, it was in 1958, or right after the imposition of Pakistan’s first martial law (by Field Martial Ayub Khan), that IJT jumped into the fray of student politics.Jamaat e Islami (JI) generously poured funds into IJT’s student union election campaigns and the student organisation gradually began to rise as a powerful electoral force. In the bloody war of 1971, the Pakistan army created a group of IJT millitants against the East Pakistani nationalists. The militant faction was called the Thunder Squad and it reappeared on campuses with the mission to ‘cleanse educational institutions of immoral activities. ’ Though those days are long gone, this mission has stuck by the IJT and its supporters. Where we hear of positive initiatives like the Girls at Dhabas movement, which is about women reclaiming public spaces, we hear of incidences like these that remind us just how important it is to support the right to freedom for women; to be able to enjoy playing a sport outside with their friends, or to sit in a public place without being harassed.
Universities must not under any circumstances allow such extremist behaviour, not only to maintain the standard of education in their institutions but also to comply with the National Action Plan being enforced all over the country.
pk.shafaqna.com
