KARACHI: Expressing concerns over academic and administrative affairs at the city’s two prestigious educational institutions, D. J. Science College and Islamia College, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) on Monday warned that any “conspiracy” of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government to use the historic buildings for its vested interest would meet a strong reaction from the opposition party and people of the metropolis.

PTI MPA and Karachi president Bilal Ghaffar along with fellow legislators Rabiz Azfar, Firdous Shamim Naqvi and Shahzad Qureshi visited the college and met students and staff there.

They expressed serious reservations over the attitude of the Sindh education department that had not even moved to come forward and clarify its position publicly about the D. J College as well as Islamia College giving rise to speculations of something wrong.

“We came here to see for ourselves the situation which has evolved due to the fiasco related to students’ admissions to this historic and prestigious college of Karachi,” MPA Ghaffar said. “We have learned that 600 pre-engineering students were to be accommodated in D. J. Science College but only 86 admissions were announced.”

They said that the college should be upgraded to the University of Modern Sciences and the centre of excellence.

“The building of the college is a declared heritage site and there is no financial allocation or budget provided to maintain this building,” said MPA Qureshi.

About Islamia College, they said that the future of 7,000 students was at stake and the premises cannot be vacated. “The government should compensate the owners for the land or challenge the issue in court to ensure the the historic college would not cease to exist at the present location,” they said.

Earlier, the party also submitted a resolution in the Sindh Assembly demanding formation of a judicial commission to investigate alleged torture on Senator Azam Swati, murder of journalist Arshad Sharif in Kenya and assassination attempt on former prime minister Imran Khan.

Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2022