The four recently elected members of the Punjab University (PU) syndicate participated in the syndicate’s meeting on Wednesday in which syndicate members reaffirmed the decision of termination of former Disciplinary Committee head Dr Iftikhar Baloch.
According to PU syndicate members, the decision to terminate Dr Bloch was on merit and in this process all legal criteria was fulfilled. They clarified that according to law, National Assembly’s standing committee could not ask them about the issue, as it was a provincial matter.
Journalist Hassan Nasar, Raghib Naeemi, MPA Imran Nazir, PU VC Prof Dr Mujahid Kamran, the newly elected members: Prof Dr Shokat Ali, Dr Asmat Ullah, Dr Javid Sami and Shumaila Gull among others were present in the meeting.
Various issues were discussed in this meeting while an important point in the agenda of the meeting was the termination of Dr Baloch. According to a participant, PU’s law was passed by the provincial assembly, whose standing committee could question PU, but the varsity was not answerable to the National Assembly’s standing committee.
PU terminated Dr Baloch for sexually harassing his female colleagues. Islami Jamiat-e-Taliba members and pro-Jamat-e-Islami teachers had been demanding Baloch’s termination, while some pro-JI teachers had been supporting Dr Baloch and blackmailing PU VC for their stakes. Meeting’s participants, especially females, appreciated Baloch’s termination.
A meeting’s participant said that PU’s decision on Baloch’s salary issue, which was before National Assembly standing committee, was justified as Baloch had not joined the Geology Department where he was transferred. An HEC representative was also present in the meeting. The meeting members welcomed the newly elected PU syndicate members.
According to a senior professor, the corruption charges on teachers were not the part of the meeting’s agenda but in the next meeting, it would be on top of the agenda. He said that varsity’s syndicate was committed to give a comprehensive decision about the corruption charges on the some faculty members of the varsity and besides this, some corrupt PU Employees Union’s members’ termination will be also be discussed in the next meeting. Financial matters and appointments of chairmen and directors were also in the meeting’s agenda.
