The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has sealed a Sialkot-based private university namely “Islamic University of Pakistan, Sialkot” here after arresting its vice chancellor Javaid Cheema and his two sons.
The NAB has also seized all the record of this university besides initiating the larger scale investigations in this regard. According to the senior NAB officials, a special team of NAB raided the private university in Sialkot and arrested its accused owner Javaid Cheema and his two sons besides sealing the private university in Sialkot in a big financial scam of issuing the fake academic degrees from matriculation to PhD level to thousands of the people by extorting millions of rupees from them.
In September 2015, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) had declared the status of the private university as fake by publishing the “student and parent alert” advertisement in national Urdu and English dailies.
The educational future of the all the male and female students is in doldrums due to prevailing confusion after the sealing of the private university.
In September 2015, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in its advertisement published in national dailies, had informed the people that “Islamic University of Pakistan, Sialkot” was not allowed to impart formal education through any mode at any level and it was not recognised by the HEC.
The HEC had advised the parents and students will not be recognised.
According to some officials of Sialkot education department, the accused Javaid Cheema had been a lower class employee in education department of Sialkot but was terminated from his job due to his fake educational degrees.
They added that after being terminated from his governmental job in Sialkot education department, the accused established this university several years ago.
The dozens of the colleges across the country were stated to be affiliated with this university in Sialkot , which had been issuing the degrees of matriculation, intermediate, BA, B.Ed, MA, M.Ed, LLB, M.Phil and PhD, engineering and Aloom-e-Sharqia for the last several years.
It was also learnt that accused Javaid Cheema was allegedly heavily charging the students for issuing academic degrees as per their desires.
Some local officials of Sialkot education department revealed that several inquiries against this university and its VC had already been lying pending with the NAB. They added that the accused had already developed his strong contacts with the senior NAB and FIA officials due to which he had been lying “safe and sound” since long.
They said that several corruption cases were also registered at several police stations in Sialkot and Gujranwala against Javaid Cheema for issuing the fake academic degrees to the people.
Meanwhile, several affected students and their parents have expressed grave concern over this situation and the future of this private university after being sealed by the NAB.
They have urged Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, HEC chairman and Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif to probe into the matter to save the educational future of thousands of the students.
