THE decision of cancelling an international conference on the subject of current trends in science, engineering and technology, which was scheduled to be held in the last week of July at the Karachi University (KU), has been frustrating.

The move appears to have been made on grounds of security threats to the participants following the suicide blast in April outside the Confucius Institute located on the KU campus. The attack claimed four lives, with three of the deceased being Chinese faculty members.

Contrary to what the authorities might want to believe, cancelling an event of international stature gives an impression that the authorities find it hard to manage the security situation either due to lack of capacity or lack of interest.

This impression is bolstered by the chaotic measures recently taken to improve on-campus security. For example, public transport is no longer allowed inside KU due to which both students and faculty members have to walk kilometres to reach their respective classes, with the only thing accompanying them being the blazing, scorching sun. Understandably, this move has sparked harsh criticism of the university administration on social media platforms from a wide section of the affected individuals.

Furthermore, the disappointment in the cancellation of the said conference is also due to the fact that during my two decades of service here, I had never witnessed an international event being planned at such a grand scale. The conference planned on current trends in science and technology was relevant to almost all departments under the Faculty of Science, owing to which there was considerable excitement among faculty and students.

Everybody involved was hoping to rub shoulders with professionals, contemporaries and mentors from within and outside Pakistan who were planning to attend both in person and virtually. A large number of abstracts for research papers had also been submitted by a number of students, researchers and faculty members.

The authorities should realise that such events are necessary for all stakeholders of the varsity’s knowledge-seeking community as they enable sharing of ideas and expertise, while providing space for collaboration and networking for academic and professional pursuits. In addition, such conferences also constitute a small, but significant part of the positive soft image of Pakistan and the university itself.

It is rather unfortunate and heartbreaking that instead of tackling the security challenge head on, and reacting positively to the situation, the university authorities have, by pulling the curtain down on a large-scale international event, exposed their unpreparedness and incompetence to deal with their responsibilities.

Moreover, such a decision also reveals a degree of mistrust towards the law-enforcement agencies whose higher officials had promised their utmost support for the organisation and enforcement of security arrangements for the event.

Against such a background, the least the authorities could do was to postpone and reschedule the conference instead of cancelling it outright. In the meantime, the administration should work with the security and law-enforcement agencies to improve security plans and ensure other foolproof arrangements. This would restore the confidence of all in the university and its management, and would be a far better, more logical way to challenge violent extremism.

The Sindh government, being the actual custodian of the university, should also play a role and give special directives as far as the ad-hocism of Karachi University administration is concerned.

Prof (Dr) Intikhab Ulfat
Department of Physics
University of Karachi
Karachi

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2022