The Lahore High Court on Friday turned down Bahauddin Zakariya University’s (BZU) decision to suspend a student belonging to the Ahmadi community, calling the university’s decision “persecution”.
In September, a student named Umer Taimur Tahir was enrolled in the Pharm-D programme on a minority quota at the BZU in September.
A month later, on October 11, the university suspended his admission without intimating him prior, without giving any justification for it.
According to the court, at the time of being contested in the LHC, the university claimed that the concern was “gratuitous, unwarranted and untrue.”
The student has also submitted a plea in the court while challenging the university’s decision to suspend his admission, by stating that he “treated as an object and not a human being”.
Tahir’s petition read that “Some event which is not discernible from the record and about which the petitioner has no information or knowledge allegedly took place by virtue of which his admission has been suspended without informing him, without hearing him, without providing any reason for the same.”
In this regards, Justice Muhammad Shan Gul noted that “amounts to persecuting the already persecuted!”. While adding that the varsity’s decision showed no regard for students along with “a conscious disregard for minority rights”.
The vice-chancellor of the university has also been summoned to inquire into the matter to probe further that why the petitioner had been singled out “for such callous and insensitive treatment”.
It has been pointed out by Justice Gul that Article 36 of the Constitution calls for safeguarding the legal rights and interests of minorities. “Even this right contained in Article 22 and the principle of the policy contained in Article 36 of the Constitution clearly protect the petitioner from such attacks,” the judge stated.
The court ordered that the student’s petition must be sent to the vice-chancellor “so he could take a paternalistic view in the matter and ensure that the petitioner is not dealt a marked hand.”
