FAISALABAD – In what appears to be a rare kind of action, a Pakistani university has expelled four students on charges of criticising the university administration on Facebook and misleading fellow students.
The University of Agriculture, Faisalabad took the strange decision of rusticating students through an order issued on June 6.
“The disciplinary advisory committee has found Muhammad Isfandyar Javed of MSc (Hons) agronomy (2nd semester), Zubair Iqbal of MSc (Hons) plant breeding and genetics (2nd semester), Ghulam Jelani of MS management sciences (4th semester) and Umer Bilal of MSc horticulture (2nd semester) guilty of spreading undesirable comments/remarks against the university administration on social media, misleading and trapping the students community and defaming, damaging repute and bringing bad name to the university.” read the order.
The committee duly approved by the competent authority expelled three students permanently from Spring 2016-17 and another named Umer Bilal for two years. They have also been instructed to vacate the hostels.
A deadline of 30 days has been provided to the penalised students to file individual appeals to the vice chancellor. They may also file review appeal(s) against the orders passed on their appeals.
This is the second rustication of such kind by the same varsity. Earlier, in January last year, the same treatment was meted out to PhD student Kashan Haider on charges of posting comments on Facebook against the Kissan Mela organised by the UAF in November 2015.
“I am in a dilemma for the past two to three days after observing the condition of Kissan Mela and how music concerts are depicting the true village lifestyle. How the teachers’ high impact factor would light the candle of knowledge sitting at stalls rather than in classrooms. The strength of foreigners was more than the farmers in the Kissan Mela,” read Gilani’s Facebook post that led to his expulsion.
