Daily Times

This week, students from the University of the Punjab (PU), belonging to the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT), caused mayhem in Lahore. According to media reports, trouble had been brewing for the past couple of months. The PU administration had been trying to get the male students to vacate a hostel that had been earmarked for girls. Apparently, the male students belonging to the University Law College had refused to comply with the orders, which eventually led to the students manhandling the Law College teachers and locking them up. When action was taken by the police, the miscreants resorted to violent protests and damage of public property, including setting a bus on fire.

Cases were registered against the perpetrators for offences under the Pakistan Penal Code and the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 (ATA). Media reports stated that when some of these students were presented before the learned judge in the anti-terrorism court, he deleted the offences under the ATA and directed that the accused be produced before the ordinary criminal courts.

Section six of the ATA defines terrorism as “the use or threat of action where: the use or threat is designed to coerce and intimidate or overawe the government or the public or a section of the public or community or sect to create a sense of fear or insecurity in society.” An “action” falls within the ambit of this law if it involves, among others, “the doing of anything that causes death; involves grievous violence against a person or grievous body injury or harm to person, involves grievous damage to property, involves the doing of anything that is likely to cause death or endangers a person’s life, incites hatred and contempt on religious, sectarian or ethnic basis to stir up violence or cause internal disturbance, involve stoning, brick-batting or any other form of mischief to spread panic, creates a serious risk to safety of public or a section of the public, or is designed to frighten the general public and thereby prevent them from coming out and carrying on their lawful trade and daily business, and disrupts civil (civic) life, involves the burning of vehicles or another serious form of arson, is designed to seriously interfere with or seriously disrupt a communications system or public utility service, involves serious coercion or intimidation of a public servant in order to force him to discharge or to refrain from discharging his lawful duties, or involves serious violence against a member of the police force, armed forces, civil armed forces, or a public servant.” The law further states that the use or threat or use of any action falling within the ambit defined, which involves the use of firearms, explosives or any other weapon, is terrorism, and includes an act or series of acts “done for the benefit of a prescribed organisation”.

Anyone who has had the privilege of studying at the PU will be familiar with the IJT and its activities, even if not directly having been one of its ‘affectees’. I can claim familiarity! While studying at the PU, during our era, one quickly learnt to adapt to the ‘jamaatis’ and how best to avoid them. When most of them were in your class, it could indeed be tough, more so for the boys than for the girls. The girls realised that the only way they should be referred to, written about or called upon was via the use of the term bhai (brother) and definitely not ‘bhai jaan’ (dear brother) to avoid any confusion. One also learnt that, every once in a while (read monthly basis), there would be a magnificent activity called ‘operation clean-up’. Interestingly, operation clean-up required not the cleaning up of the bhai log (brother people) from the campus but of one’s fellow male students who had dared to talk to any girl, never mind sit with her, classmate or otherwise. The ‘operation’ required a readjustment of the non-bhai’s bones and internal organs without any anesthesia — either general or local! Many of our poor non-bhai classmates were ‘indisposed’ for several days at a time. One of our female class fellows was, for want of a better word, a ‘modern’ girl. Her attire was everything that the bhai log did not believe in. After a couple of months, we discovered that our modern classmate had her head covered and was clad in the dress-code, every inch of which screamed, bhai log! Much to our amusement, the newly reformed behn (sister) had joined the bhai log clan as the nazima (female chief)! So, while we battled with the challenging world of Applied Psychology, we were equally intrigued by its practical manifestation among our own kind — conformity and Rome played a major part. Actions and words were guarded on campus in order to avoid a confrontation with the unwieldy individuals and khalifas (heads) of the jamaat who never seemed to pass out and populated the university as khalifas, occupying hostel rooms even after they had been ‘expelled’!

What agitated us, the non-bhai/behn students, was why these politically motivated organisations were allowed to function on campus and starve us of the air to breathe in? There were ugly incidents most of the time; one of our friends was sitting on the front lawn of the MBA department with his legally engaged, family approved fiancé, when he got picked and roughed up by gun-toting bhais! He was taken for a ride in the car and given a practical lesson in the virtues of modesty and thrown out to nurse his wounds! One day, a great commotion was in the making at the university. Apparently, the bhai log, while expounding the virtues of modesty, had picked on the wrong guy. An army captain had come to visit his fiancé at the campus, when he was marked for a ‘reformation course’. Nursing a bruised body and even more bruised ego, he returned a few hours later with his buddies and rearranged the body parts of the bhai log! Needless to say, there was quiet jubilation among the former affectees and prayers for more rearrangement of the long-time aggressors!

Times seem to have not changed much since our tenure. The IJT then trashed the office of our female chairperson and attempted to assault her. Not too long ago, Imran Khan was manhandled by the jamaatis. This week was nothing out of the ordinary as far as the IJT is concerned. Why are students allowed to form political organisations in educational institutes? Should they not be focused on studies and the teachers on imparting education? The unfortunate part is that extremism and politics have seeped into the foundation of all our institutions — none remains unaffected. These organisations exist and carry out violent behaviour because they have sympathisers and nurturers within those institutions and protectors outside the system.

Setting buses on fire is terrorism. Ask the students and people on the roads who were in direct line of these violent protests whether they were fearful, insecure or panicked. Ask them how it felt to have a violent mob come towards them when they had their children and their loved ones in the car or on the motorcycles with them? Ask them how it felt when petrol was being poured around them? Ask them how it felt to have their lives endangered and seeing the bus being torched? Ask the police and the teachers whether they were intimidated, coerced or overawed.

The nazima in our class maintained her hijab and abaya (cloak) until we finished our degree. On the day of the class photograph, she turned up, modern and hair blow-dried in magnificent curls! She had returned from Rome.

The writer is an advocate of the High Court