RAWALPINDI, May 31: Government Asghar Mall Postgraduate College has been granted the status of a university and it will be known as Potohar University, the district council was informed on Friday.

Presiding Officer Raja Irshad Abbasi, while making this announcement, said the Punjab governor had directed the district Nazim to complete the procedural requirements in this regard.

He was responding to a resolution moved by Raja Asad Abbassi, member district council, regarding the problems faced by the graduate and postgraduate students while interacting with the Punjab University, with which almost all the colleges in the city were affiliated.

The Potohar University will be the fourth public sector university of the city and the fifth in the district. The other universities are Barani Agriculture University, Fatima Jinnah Women University, National University of Science and Technology — all in Rawalpindi — and University of Engineering and Technology, Taxila.

President Gen Pervez Musharraf had approved the setting up of the new university during his speech at a public rally in connection with the referendum.

The Friday session, for most of the time, remained unruly, therefore, the presiding officer had to adjourn the session till Saturday morning. Council Officer Mian Afzal later informed this reporter that the presiding officer had been replaced and Kamran Aslam would preside over the session on Saturday.

Though things appeared out of control right from the beginning, the session was completely disrupted when the members failed to get a ruling in a case of harassment of a women councillor by the police and education department employees. The members wanted prompt action against the accused.

One of the women members complained to the council that she was harassed by the husband of a girls school principle and the local police while she was performing the monitoring duty of schools as part of her official assignment.

At his point, the members asked the presiding officer to summon the district police chief to explain the situation within a day after investigating the issue. They felt greatly agitated over the matter.

The situation was about to get settled, when the aggrieved woman councillor said the people against whom she had filed the complaint were sitting in the visitors’ gallery and harassing her.

Hearing this, the members went berserk and started shouting, creating a pandemonium in the hall, despite the fact that the presiding officer had ordered the staff to switch off all mikes.

Some of the members protested against the presiding officer for his alleged indifference to the breach of the privilege of the council and for deliberately ignoring ‘a serious issue’.

Earlier, Asad Abbassi moved a resolution, asking President Musharraf to call Mian Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto back into the country to develop national consensus on country’s security in view of the prevailing tension with India.

His resolution caused division between the pro-government and pro-PPP/PML members, both accusing each other of harming national interest.

The presiding officer had to bar the members from discussing this issue. In his ruling, he said: “It is beyond the purview of this council to discuss national affairs and we ought to restrict ourselves to local issues.”

Before the start of this debate, the members had a heated discussion over the role of special seat members. Badshah Mir Khan Afridi, a directly elected member, said they had greater right to the development funds because they needed to fulfil the demands of all people of their respective constituencies. The special seat members are here only to safeguard the interests of the communities they represent, he said.

His remarks irked the special seats members, particularly women. They demanded an equal and meaningful role in the council. The members from Kahuta Tehsil boycotted the session and staged a walk-out, protesting against the alleged unjust allocations for development schemes.

District council member Javed Iqbal Mirza said: “We want to express dissatisfaction over the working of the district Nazim, the Naib nazim and the district coordination officer for being partial and biased towards the members from Kahuta Tehsil.”

“We express no-confidence in Kahuta Tehsil Nazim and Naib Nazim for being unable to secure the rights of the people of the Tehsil,” he added.

He said that he and his colleagues would not end their protest until Shaukat Aziz Bhatti, a district council member, tendered a written apology for his remarks against the council members from Kahuta.

Mr Mirza said the development funds were inequitably distributed among the Tehsils. The fiscal year is about to end and the Khushal Pakistan Programme funds have not been released in Kahuta Tehsil so far, he added.