CTD to profile student organisations in Sindh

Amid the emergence of students’ links with terrorism, the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) has decided to carry out profiling of university students associated with various student organisations and to establish its network at several big universities of Sindh.

It has been decided that the CTD will ask small varsities to nominate their representatives to work with its officials to prevent students from turning extremists. The move comes in the wake of an attack on Khawaja Izharul Hassan, opposition leader in the Sindh Assembly, on the first holiday of Eidul Azha on September 2.

Hassaan, who was shot dead in an encounter with police when he was trying to escape after making the assassination attempt on Khawaja Izharul Hassan, was a graduate of the NED University of Engineering and Technology.

The anti-terrorism police force is said to have taken this initiative after investigators discovered that militant outfit Ansar-ul-Shariah Pakistan (ASP) central leader Abdul Kareem Sarosh Siddiqui and Balochistan University of Information Technology and Management Science professor Dr Mushtaq had been students of the University of Karachi’s Department of Applied Physics and the Department of Botany respectively.

Two others arrested members, Engineer Talha Ansari and ASP spokesman Dr Abdullah Hashmi, also got their higher education from a reputable university in Karachi. Talking to The News last week, the CTD’s Transnational Terrorists Intelligence Group’s (TTIG) incharge, Raja Umer Khattab, confirmed that the department had planned to carry out profiling of students of varsities associated with various students’ unions.

Giving the rationale behind this move, he said the security agencies were taking on terrorists associated with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, whose members were mostly uneducated or not much educated.

“Now, we are facing terrorists who are highly educated, and to deal with graduate terrorists we have to keep an eye on the affairs of universities from where they got their degrees,” he added.

“As per the plan, the CTD is going to profile varsity undergraduates associated with students’ unions and to establish a CTD network in big varsities,” Khattab said.  “The CTD would ask small higher educational institutes to nominate their representatives to work with the CTD for keeping a check on suspected elements inside the campus.”

Karachi University Teachers Society President Dr Shakil Farooqi said: The KU’s name come in the limelight whenever we talk about educated terrorists despite the fact that the varsity has had a wing of paramilitary Rangers inside the campus for the last 32 years.”

However, Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Muhammad Ajmal Khan said: “The name of KU comes in the limelight when anyone talks about educated people as the varsity annually is producing 20,000 graduates for the market.”

He added that he along with the VCs of 10 other universities attended a CTD seminar in April this year. During the seminar, CTD officials discussed stories of terrorists who were holding higher education degrees from different universities, “but I kept my lips tight”, Prof Khan said.

“In the end of the seminar, I went to the CTD’s TTIG’s incharge, Raja Umer Khattab, and told him that I am VC KU.” “Khattab gave me a smile and said he along with his team would visit the KU and discuss our security issues, but then he did not visit us,” he said.

“A few days ago, they arrived in the university following a revelation that one of ASP terrorists was enrolled in the KU’s Department of Applied Physics and we have decided many things,” Prof Khan maintained.

“Now, I am looking forward to the CTD’s visit and I assure you that I am ready to work with them to figure out suspects, but one thing is clear that I will not become part of a witch hunt. “The security agencies believe that there are cells of terrorist organisations inside the campus, and if it is so, then it is their duty to go after them.

“The terrorists have their cells everywhere in the society and they have cells in the KU too, but what I can do is to facilitate them [CTD officials] in locating the terrorist cells without harassing students.”

Talking about the role of the paramilitary Rangers, the vice chancellor said the Rangers also took responsibility for whatever was going on the campus and they were conscious that they would also be held accountable if anything went wrong there as they had been “here for more than three decades”.

He added that the KU administration was working with the Rangers, and the varsity would help them to catch anyone involved in terrorism-related activities.