Student Politics at its worst

I apologize for the delay in explaining what the old letter from my undergrad was about. But I am a graduate student and life was just too busy. I went kayaking over the weekend and then scrambled to do all the work that was postponed because of the trip.

This post gives some background information only. I’ll have more in the morning. I promise!

When I started my Bachelors in 1989 at the University College of Engineering, Taxila, Pakistan (then a campus of University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore but now a separate university), there were a number of student political groups on campus. These political groups should better be called student gangs as they were involved in lots of gang-like activity including turf battles.

One of the worst and biggest groups was Islami Jamiat Tulaba (IJT) [Islamic Association of Students] which was the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami [Islamic Party] (currently a component of the religio-political alliance in power in the province of NWFP and founded by Maudoodi). [Aside: I have written about Maudoodi here and here.] IJT guys believed in forcing everyone to follow their conception of Islam and patriotism. They were crazy and murderous and found on most college campuses in Pakistan. Even though they didn’t control the student union (student government), they were a big presence on our campus, except for a year or so, but I am getting ahead of myself.

The group that held all the officer positions of the student union in the only election during 1977-1993 (which was held shortly before I joined) was the Engineering Student League (ESL). They were supposed to not be affiliated with any political party, but that didn’t mean they weren’t nasty. And they did morph into the Muslim Student Federation (MSF) in 1991. MSF was the student wing of the Pakistan Muslim League, one of the major right-of-center political parties. Pakistan Muslim League was the ruling party of the country from 1985-88, 1990-93 and 1996-99.

The fights between these two groups happened off and on and involved all sorts of weapons, especially the AK-47 assault rifle. During my time there, 4 students were killed in two separate incidents. I might go into the details of these incidents later.

UPDATE: More here.

By Zack

Dad, gadget guy, bookworm, political animal, global nomad, cyclist, hiker, tennis player, photographer

3 comments

  1. Fortunately I didn’t like in a dorm, so I didn’t see as much guns and violence as those who lived in the residence halls.

  2. DEAR SIR . PLEASE I WANT BRIEFLY NOTE ON MANY PAGES (20 OR 25 ) ON THE IMPACTS OF STUDENTS POLITICS ON STUDENT

    PLEASE I M WAITING

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