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India-Pakistan
Students fight over who will put up no-fighting poster first at college
2007-01-28
Karachi, Pakistan: Six students were injured in a row between two student organisations, the Islami Jamiat-e-Talba (IJT) and Pakhtoon Students Federation (PSF), at the Dawood Engineering College of Science and Technology Saturday on a second day of campus violence.

Clashes between some of the IJT and PSF activists have been going on for the past one week in various colleges of Karachi. On Saturday morning, the students fought over a poster urging students not to fight on campus. According to reports, the fight was over who would put up the poster first. And what started as an exchange of hot words snowballed into a full-fledged fistfight following which, the students hurled classroom furniture at each other.

Four of the injured students Atif, Khurrum, Ali and Imran, belonged to the IJT while, the other two, Zafar Iqbal and Aftab Khan, are members of the PSF. According to sources, Rangers personnel who had been deployed at the university immediately threw out one group of students and in an attempt to separate the warring factions, kept the other one inside.

However, once out on the road, the group became even more violent and blocked the new MA Jinnah Road by burning tyres that they stole from a nearby petrol pump.

Traffic on the road was suspended for around three hours, till the police arrived. Personnel from all of police stations in the area reached the troubled spot, and used tear gas, baton charge and open fire to disperse the students. According to the Jamshed Quarters police station, no FIR has been filed yet and neither have any arrests been made so far.

Daily Times made repeated attempts to contact Deputy Superintendent of the Rangers (DSR) Capt Waseem, who is in charge of the Rangers contingent deployed at the university, but he declined to comment.

IJT Secretary Information, Ahmer Khan, alleged that the PSF was trying to induce students taking their BCom examinations in various colleges, to cheat. “In order to maintain the discipline of the college, we tried to stop them and also took the principal into confidence, but the staff is cooperating with them,” he told Daily Times. He claimed that one of the IJT’s posters was taken down by PSF activists upon which they notified the Rangers who reportedly took no action. “Therefore, we had no option but to protest,” he concluded.

“From Monday to Wednesday, IJT members were harassing PSF recruits at the Federal Urdu University of Science and Technology (FUUAST), Islamia College, Dawood Engineering College and National College,” Pakhtoon Student Federation (PSF) Sindh President, Tariq Tareen, claimed while talking to Daily Times. “When PSF members came to college in the morning, IJT members would accost them and pester them to join the IJT. We have complained to everyone from the Gulshan-e-Iqbal TPO to the Karachi CCPO.

“Finally, when we realized that no authority was going to help us, we decided to hold a demonstration outside the Idara Noor-e-Haq (Jamat-e-Islami headquarters) on Thursday,” Tareen maintained. “The IJT is part of the JI, and we figured that it would be able to stop them. But instead of listening to us, they attacked us and fired shots at us. In return we hurled stones at them, and were able to get out of there after a lot of difficulty. Saturday’s incident at Dawood College is part of the same series of events.”
Posted by:john

#2  also ROFLMAO - I got my boggle back!
Posted by: Frank G   2007-01-28 18:37  

#1  ROFLMAO! Thanks, john - I needed that after some of the other posts.
Posted by: xbalanke   2007-01-28 18:06  

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