PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI)-led provincial government is using every tactics to save the skin of the party’s lawmaker Murad Saeed, who is yet to get out of the examination controversy. Tired of exerting every kind of pressure on the administration of the University of Peshawar (UoP), the government constituted a two-member committee comprising of the additional secretary higher education and additional secretary law to further investigate the matter that has already been thoroughly probed by an internal committee of the university. The probe committee has submitted its comprehensive report to the university administration and its main points have been repeatedly published in media. Murad Saeed had also moved the Peshawar High Court (PHC) to seek justice and the court has already started its proceedings. Despite all this, the government formed another committee on the pretext of ensuring fair-play and transparency. According to reliable sources, the PTI leadership and the provincial government got desperate after the university administration submitted its reply in the court. The reply caught the leadership of the PTI by surprise as they were expecting something else. The sources said Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had called UoP Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Rasul Jan to the Chief Minister’s Secretariat a few weeks back to sort out the matter. Some top leaders of PTI were also present there. The vice-chancellor was reluctant to discuss the matter in presence of the PTI leaders, the sources added. The sources said the vice-chancellor had even offered to resign as he stood firm by what the university’s internal committees had done in the case. After this meeting, the sources said, the PTI leadership was confident that the university would not submit a reply in the court and the court would decide the case in their favour. But the university administration submitted a detailed reply in the court based on the internal inquiry committee report, which prompted the government to form another committee to investigate the matter. Interestingly, the two-member government committee co-opted a senior member of the Planning Commission in Islamabad as its member though there was no provision in the notification under which the committee had been formed to co-opt someone. It is the same member who prepared the petition for the accused lawmaker and is pleading his case on all forums. The government committee held its first meeting on Tuesday wherein the said member reportedly treated the university’s committee members harshly in front of the faculty members of the Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Peshawar. The committee continued its proceedings on Wednesday. The faculty members of the department appeared before the committee for personal hearing. The committee had called the university’s internal probe committee members to appear before it again on Thursday, but they didn’t do so on the plea that the case was pending in the court. The university administration submitted a letter to the authorities concerned to hold the committee in abeyance till the court decision. The court has fixed April 30 as date for next hearing. The university administration in the letter argued that the committee might affect the court proceeding. The internal committee of the university has already proved Murad Saeed guilty of using unfair means in the arrangement of the make-up examination for his failed papers and for producing a fake detailed marks certificate. The committee has recommended to the university administration to declare the make-up papers null and void and take action against the teachers concerned. Provincial minister for Higher Education Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani, who is also holds the portfolio of information, could not be reached to seek government’s version despite repeated attempts. He was not picking up his phone and also did not respond to SMS.
