Miscreants To Be Dealt With Iron Hand: Minister

Punjab Higher Education Minister Syed Raza Ali Gillani on Monday said that the students found involved in clashes and fire incident in the university would be brought to book and awarded exemplary punishments

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 22nd Jan, 2018 ) :Punjab Higher education Minister Syed Raza Ali Gillani on Monday said that the students found involved in clashes and fire incident in the university would be brought to book and awarded exemplary punishments.

Talking to the media men at the Punjab University Vice Chancellor office here, he said the culprits involved in arson and vandalism would be identified through CCTV footage and the police would register cases against them.

Punjab University Vice Chancellor Dr Zakaria Zakar was also present during the media talk. Two students groups in the Electrical Engineering department had clashed on Sunday night on the installation of a stall at a PU administration-stamped festival and later some of the studnets had set ablaze the furniture in a room.

While the students from the antagonist groups had clashed again on Monday morning and caused damage to a police van besides injuring each other in clashes which created panic among the university students and staff.

Heavy contingents of police reached the university and took hold of the things. To a question, the Minister said such ugly scenes marred the image of the university and affected its ratings, adding that the bad students would not be spared this time.

He said had the previous university management had measures in the wake of previous such incident, this incident would not have occurred. To another query, he said the incumbent VC had taken reins of the university only a week ago and he could not be held responsible for such unfortunate incident, adding that Prof Dr Zakaria Zakar had spent more than 29 years in the Punjab University and he was capable of stemming the rot.

He said the VC enjoyed full support of the government. To another query, Raza Ali Gillani said disciplinary action would be taken against the students found involved in the clashes while police cases would also be lodged against them to make them an example for others.

PU administration was in meeting to ascertain the miscreants so that disciplinary action could be initiated and cases lodged against them. Earlier, the Higher Education Minister Syed Raza Gillani, on the instructions of Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sahrif, reached Punjab University and held marathon meetings with the university administration, the police, students from both the groups and journalists and listened to their point of view.

Both the groups held each other responsible for the ugly incident.