Imtiaz Ali July 13,
2017
KARACHI: Leading academicians have called
for a coordinated and strong policy to check extremism that they believe is no
more limited to conventional madressahs (seminaries) but can now be found in
reputed public and private educational institutions, negating the ‘myth’ that
radicalisation is linked with poverty and illiteracy.
They expressed these views at a seminar
titled ‘Growing radicalisation in educational institutions’, which was
organised by the Sindh police’s Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) at the
Central Police Office on Wednesday.
They sought immediate guidelines from every
concerned segment of society including law enforcement and intelligence
agencies to build a counter-narrative against extremism, which was fast
attracting the educated youth of the province.
Vice chancellors and other officials of
around 40 varsities, both private and public, attended the seminar.
The law enforcers and academics agreed to
set up vigilance committees, enhancing surveillance, organising seminars at
varsity auditoriums to sensitise the faculty members and students. They also
promised to take up ‘practical issues’ with higher authorities.
Officials of CTD, 40 varsities exchange
views on radicalisation
“Radicalisation [is] growing at academic
institutes with the CTD assessing that the next generation of militants [is]
more likely to have university education rather than a madressah background,”
said Additional IG Dr Sanaullah Abbasi who heads the CTD in Sindh.
“The recent cases of Noreen Leghari and Saad
Aziz gave credence to this theory,” he added.
Dr Abbasi said the seminar was meant to
start a discussion between varsity administrations and law enforcers to
identify problem areas related to youth radicalisation and to see what possible
solutions can be adopted.
The CTD chief said there’s a need to
sensitise academic institutes about the gravity of the problem.
“Small pockets of radicalisation [are]
emerging in academic institutes,” said another CTD officer Munir Ahmed Shaikh.
Citing the case of Noreen Leghari who was
radicalised through ‘social media’, the CTD SSP Operations said the varsity
administration later told them that they had “detected certain behavioural
changes” among several girls of the medical university, as a group of 10 to 15
girls used to attend ‘dars’ in ‘isolation’.
“There [is] a thin line between preaching
and radicalisation,” observed Mr Shaikh.
CTD’s SSP (Intelligence) Omar Shahid Hamid
said the department had assessed that youths that had been radicalised at
academic institutes were “sophisticated and trained”.
“Radicalisation is growing and we fear that
the militants are more likely to emerge from secular academic institutes,” said
the CTD officer.
Mr Hamid cited the case of a 31-year-old
man who studied at the prestigious Karachi Grammar School (KGS), graduated from
LUMS and later on started teaching at the KGS. He was radicalised to the extent
that he went to Waziristan, where he got injured in a drone strike. “Now he’s
working on de-radicalisation after realising the horrible consequences,” he
added.
A global agenda
CTD officer Raja Umar Khattab said
radicalised youths of certain seminaries tended to indulge in sectarian
violence or go to ‘jihad’ in Afghanistan but certain youths of academic
institutes had a global agenda and they wanted to fight wars.
Citing the case of Saad Aziz and 19 other
cases of radicalised youths, Mr Khattab disclosed that their parents knew of
their drift towards extremism but they did not inform law enforcers. He said
some educated and rich youths of Defence, Gulshan, Gulistan-i-Jauhar and
Nazimabad were joining the global militant outfit, Islamic State group.
Referring to the case of a private
university teacher who trained his son and other close relatives to prepare
improvised explosive devices (IEDs), he said that faculty member became a ‘most
wanted’ person.
Mr Khattab also cited another case of a
faculty member of an academic institute in Clifton who radicalised one youth
there.
CTD officer Mazhar Mashwani gave the
example of an NED graduate who was radicalised and highlighted the need for
strict surveillance at academic institutes.
VC Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University Lyari,
Akhtar Baloch underlined the importance of adopting ‘counter-narrative’ to
address the militancy issue. He regretted that the society was ‘militarised’ by
eliminating liberal and progressive forces during the past 30-40 years through
a particular narrative.
KASBIT Director Prof Mohammad Raees said
radicalisation on campus was a ‘social phenomenon.’
Acting VC of DUET Dr Roshan Rashidi
questioned the role of 10-12 intelligence agencies’ personnel operating at each
varsity if they could not detect militancy there.
Pro-VC of NED University Dr Mohammad Tufail
said identifying behavioural changes among the students was not ‘possible’ for
them, because they were not trained for this. However, he said they were ready
to cooperate with law enforcers and train people.
An official of LUMHS said after the Noreen
case, they were monitoring students but the issuance of show-cause notice or
strict disciplinary action could be counter-productive. He said they had
recently noticed a change in behaviour of six girl students and informed their
parents about their possible radicalisation.
Director of the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University,
Nawabshah, Roshan Ali Siyal said they had set up a vigilance team after the APS
tragedy in Peshawar and tended to call parents if any student was found having
strange behaviour.
MUET registrar Dr Abdul Waheed Umrani
observed: “We cannot mitigate the problem but we can prevent militancy with the
help of government and law enforcers.”Chairman of Sindh University’s
Criminology Department Nabi Bux Narejo said the faculty did not consider
fighting terror or extremism as their ‘domain’, because VCs were not ready for
it and they had no access to law enforcers; besides there were issues of lack
of funding or lack of any such post at academic institutes to keep watch on
militancy.Director of the People’s Medical University, Nawabshah, Mohammad
Salih said agencies’ personnel were ‘interfering’ in their administration and
financial affairs but they were not playing their role to prevent militancy on
campus.An official of Bahria University, Commander Naveed, said they were
observing activities of students and sent them to counselling cell if any
behavioural change was observed among them.
Besides, they had restricted entry of
guests or outsiders into the varsity.Pro-vice chancellor of the Shah Abdul
Latif University, Khairpur, Dr Noor Ahmed Shaikh proposed seeking help of
psychiatrists to monitor activities of students and involving the HEC in this
regard.
Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2017
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