ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) suspects that the Sindh University is protecting fake degree holders as it needs almost two months for verification of degrees sent by the HEC.Sources in the HEC confided to The News that the Sindh University management was approached by the Commission on Saturday but it was non-cooperative and indifferent.
The commission officials, it is said, spoke not only to the controversial Vice Chancellor of the Sindh University Dr Nazir Mughal but also to its controller but their responses were found to be discouraging.
“We think they want to hide the facts,” a senior Commission source said, adding that the vice chancellor, when approached, appeared totally oblivious of the deficiencies in the Sindh University’s verification of over 100 degrees of parliamentarians already rejected by the HEC.
The source said that Dr Nazir Mughal told the commission official, who contacted him, to talk to the university controller. The controller, however, sought two months’ time to complete the verification process to the satisfaction of the HEC.
“We were told by the Sindh University that the verification as per the requirement of the HEC could not be done in days or a few weeks’ time though none of the universities had said so,” the source said, adding that the HEC, however, did not agree with Sindh University’s arguments.
Next week, the HEC sources said, the commission would again approach the Sindh University to do the needful at the earliest instead of using dillydallying tactics.
The Sindh University is said to be under the influence of the provincial government, which has started using all sorts of third-rate arm-twisting tactics to stop Prof Dr Javed Leghari, HEC Chairman, from verifying the degrees of members of parliament particularly from Sindh.
Javed Leghari, who is so far braving all sorts of pressures exerted on him, is determined to complete his job honestly and fairly. He is being pressurised to resign and in order to bring him in line, the provincial government has arrested his younger brother on hastily half-cooked corruption charges.
A number of his family servants have too been reportedly apprehended by the police, his farm house in Hyderabad was also raided besides sending him threatening messages.
All this state hostility against the HEC chairman has reportedly been let loose to secure from disqualification a large number of provincial assembly members and some high profile PPP leaders from Sindh.
The HEC chairman has sought a meeting with the prime minister to discuss the fake degree issues. Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani, however, told the media on Saturday that he had yet to receive the HEC chairman’s request for the meeting but hinted that he would call Javed Leghari for a meeting in a couple of days and would not allow anybody to victimise anyone.
It is yet to be seen whether the prime minister could do anything when the home minister Sindh and close confidant of President Asif Ali Zardari, Zulfiqar Mirza, is already being blamed by the Chairman NA Standing Committee on Education for harassing Javed Leghari’s family.
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