Faculty protest Bhara Kahu bypass using QAU land

Faculty protest Bhara Kahu bypass using QAU land

ISLAMABAD: The administration of Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad (QAU) has taken action after Capital Development Authority (CDA) allegedly included 600 kanals of the university’s land in the Bhara Kahu by-pass project without getting a No Objection Certificate (NOC).

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Faculty members held a protest at the project site. They asked that the project be stopped and that the university be given other land. The university registrar also sent a letter to the chairman of the CDA to get the land of the university out of the hands of the “encroachment mafia” and for the land to be marked.

The QAU faculty and Academic Staff Association (ASA) are working hard to stop the CDA from buying the university’s land without getting permission from the university’s syndicate. They are doing this through social media. The ASA and faculty members are also making the Bhara Kahu bypass project a trend on social media.

Captain (Ret.) Muhammad Usman Younis, who is in charge of the CDA, said that the project’s land will be bought from the university at the last meeting of the CDA Board.

“Professor Muhammad Ali Shah, who is the vice chancellor of QAU, is also a member of the CDA Board. He was told that the CDA has to give the university land in exchange for the land that was used for this project, he said.

On the other hand, QAU Vice Chancellor Prof. Shah says that the alternative land will be talked about at a meeting with CDA members on Monday [tomorrow]. He said, “CDA is making the document, and we’ll get it on Monday.”

Earlier, senior faculty members from the university’s Department of International Relations and Politics met to talk about the situation. They said that the university land can’t be given to anyone without the syndicate’s permission. Concerned, the faculty also decided to start a campaign to get the CDA to give back the 600 kanals of land or stop the development project.

In a letter to the head of the CDA, QAU Registrar Dr. Raja Qaiser Ahmed said that he was very worried about the university’s land being used to build the bypass. The registrar also asked for the university’s land to be clearly marked and for work on the bypass to stop until other land could be given.

University sources say that the fact that the vice chancellor is a member of the CDA Board is strange. But it isn’t clear yet if the vice chancellor was also in the room when the CDA Board supposedly agreed to buy the university’s land as part of the project. “Why didn’t he fight back if he was there? He can’t just give the land of the university to anyone in this way. “The sources said that no one knows what the conditions were or if the vice chancellor resisted or not.

A senior faculty member said that these issues will be brought to the forefront now that Dr. Muhammad Ali’s time as VC is almost up. The professors said that Shah had not called a single meeting of the ASA in the past four years.

“Instead of giving permanent jobs to the most important faculty members, he only gave these jobs to people he liked,” they said.

On Saturday, the faculty held a protest at the site of the project. At this time, ASA President Dr. Aamir said that the Bhara Kahu bypass project is the CDA’s latest attempt to hurt the QAU. “The QAU has nothing to do with this project at all. In the past, the CDA also did not keep the deals it made with the QAU. The new project has now begun. It doesn’t have permission from the QAU administration or the syndicate,” he said, asking the government to stop the project.

“QAU owns 1700 acres of land, of which the university has been given a few acres. Without the university’s permission, the CDA administration took 600 kanals of its land and put it into the development project,” he said.

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