Atif Mian
On Thursday, June 5th, the principal of Punjab Medical College, Faisalabad, expelled every student who belonged to the Ahmadi community from the college.
A total of twenty three students, fifteen female and eight male, across the five years of medical school have been expelled as a result. Further details regarding the incident can also be found in reports from the BBC and from the Daily Times.
The Ahmadi students were “accused” of preaching their religious beliefs. The principal was pressured into expelling the entire Ahmadi student body by a mob of protesters belonging to Islami Jamiat e Talaba. The mob circled the Principal’s office and demanded the expulsions. The same day, a mob of about 300 college students also barged into Ahmadi students’ rooms, beat them and threw their luggage out of their rooms.
What makes this incident especially troubling is the fact that the decision to expel Ahmadi students was taken by a government-run medical school, under full knowledge of the relevant Punjab ministries.
As an academic, and a Pakistani, I am totally appalled by this latest incidence of religious fanaticism. One hopes that the present Punjab government turns a page, and instead of supporting the forces of extremism, comes to the protection of its ordinary citizens.
Atif Mian is Associate Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business.
Hello all,
i would strongly denounce this sad incident whic has taken place in medical college.its not only against the teaching of islam but also against basic human rights that somebody is not allowed to complet their education because of thier religion or beleif.its shame for the whole society and it tells a lot which way is our beloved pakistan moving.
If this act of perpetration is according to the limits of Islam, then all of the Muslims should not go to the Developed Christian and Jewish states for the sake higher education, who are killing and degrading Muslims on every ground, and so drown further into the ignorance with these obstinate views of protecting islam in such a manner.
But this would not happen because we all are selfish and we only do the things for our own interest. Certainly their would be some personal interests of JI behind this, otherwise love for Islam never leads towards cruelty which itself is prohibited in islam.
Moreover Muslims are beaten up all over in the world nowadays and so by doing such kind of things with the minorities in Muslim countries, they actually revenge their debasement. But they should keep in mind that such illogical steps would further lead to their humiliation in front of the world.
Agree with Dr. Haider. Tayyib, actually, a number of Muslims have won Nobel prizes, in addition to Abdus Salam…Mohammed Yunus from Bangladesh, Yasser Arafat, Ahmed Zewail from Egypt, etc.
“This is the reason why in the history of the Nobel Prize, only ONE muslim has ever won this honor. And even that person, Dr. Abdus Salam was an Ahmadi. ”
When talking of Nobel Prize in science there is one more now; http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laure ates/1999/zewail-autobio.html
But point taken that given the population of Muslims there are not enough good intellectuals.
It’s truly amazing how the extremist mullah’s in the name of protecting Islam continue to do things that present Islam in such a distorted manner, that Islam becomes the laughing stock of all religions to the rest of the world. I wonder, have any Christians, Hindu’s, or students of any other religion been expelled from this university because of their religious beliefs? I have never heard of such a thing! The Pakistani intellecuals are leaving Pakistan due to limited opportunity as it is and instead of trying to conserve and retain these intellecutals and professionals, we keep pushing them out and breeding more and more ignorance. This is the reason why in the history of the Nobel Prize, only ONE muslim has ever won this honor. And even that person, Dr. Abdus Salam was an Ahmadi. And if the Muslims consider Ahmadi Muslims to be non-muslims, then that means that in a population of over 1 billion people, NOT a SINGLE person from among the Muslim Ummah has ever won this prize.
When will the Muslims wake up? Until and unless the Muslims as a whole will not respect and protect the rights and beliefs of minorities (both muslim and non-muslim alike), Allah will continue to punish us at the hands of other nations.