Most members of the Sindh Assembly hold genuine degrees, in sharp contrast to those of Punjab, University of Karachi (KU) Pro Vice-Chancellor Dr Nasiruddin Ahmed Khan told The News on Friday.
Khan also expressed satisfaction over the verification process of the MPAs degrees that is nearing completion.
Dr Khan, who is a member of the Degrees Verification Committee, informed The News that other members of the committee, including Registrar Prof Kaleem Raza Khan and Chairman Department of Computer Science Dr Aquil Burney, had employed very careful methods to make the verification process free of errors and omissions. “We have checked the degrees in an organised way, going through the records and minimising the chances of mistake.”
The committee, tasked with the verification of 104 degrees of the MPAs issued by KU, has checked them all and found them to be genuine. The committee members are in the process of finalising the checking procedure in order to make the process flawless.
Dr Aquil Burney pointed out that the oldest degree that they checked was from the year 1952 and the results were not very clear but they did it finally. “We have questioners from the Election Commission that have to be answered and every answer takes two minutes and there are many questions. It is a cumbersome job but we did it with precision and care.”
Dr Khan refuted the news appearing in some Urdu newspapers that the degree of Stephen Arif from PS 166 was fake.
“No, it is not. We have checked it and I can say that it is authentic. The case of Yaqub Bizenjo is different. His degree is not a fake one. What he (Bizenjo) did was that he managed to get a degree one month before the KU issued the degrees of that year. It resulted in some discrepancies appearing on the degree. We cannot comment on the case because it is in the court of law,” Dr Khan informed.
In the meantime, many senior professors of the KU ridiculed the statements by politicians that were supporting the fake-degree holders and trying to put blame on the media, judiciary and Army. One professor from the Faculty of Science especially mentioned the statement of a member of the Punjab Assembly and said, “He laid the blame of three “Js” — Journalists, Judiciary and Generals. Instead of accepting the fact that they did something that was morally wrong, they were trying to blame others. It is simply disgusting!”
