Daily Times

Last Friday, a group of Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT) activists beat up a student for accompanying his female classmate to the cafeteria in Punjab university.Mobile footage of the student being thrashed is being circulated online.

This is not a new occurrence. Punjab University has always been haunted by extremist student organisations intent on morally policing their peers. They have beaten up students, teachers and even the administration on alleged claims of misrepresentation to justify their violence. This culture of violence on campuses needs to end. We need to foster an environment of learning and tolerance, where students can grow as individuals without fear.

The administration needs to take strict action against these organisations to keep the university a safe space, free of political organisations or at this rate IJT will end up running the administration as well. Media reports in the past have suggested the extraordinary influence that IJT exerts over the PU administration.

The latest incident is not a one off case in which the Jamiat succumbed to such tactics, it was a strategic move to publically thrash the student and keep their control intact. The vast majority of the students witnessed the spectacle without intervening, they either had been victims in the past or were afraid to be targeted in the future.

This shrinking of academic space is extremely problematic as it will only pave the path for violence and extremism. An educational institution where the focus of the student organisation is on what someone wears or their adherence to a particular worldview, instead of open dialogue had failed to fulfill its part. It is time that university spaces are secured and turned into nurseries of ideas, tolerance and enlightenment. *

Published in Daily Times, March 3^rd 2019.