Islamabad: The love lives of students at a
premier educational institute in Pakistan have become the subject of a heated debate.
The campus of the elitist Lahore University of Management
Sciences, which has been "divided between conservative,
retro-revisionists, ultra-modern, party-hopping and
next-generation liberals," was witness to the debate when a
woman student sent a mass email on the university's mailing
system.
The unnamed student, thought to be a conservative, sent
out the email saying she was fed up with "on-campus
indecency." The mail titled "To love or not to love," has been
described as a "social suicide bomb" by Asif Akhtar, a
recipient of the mail.
The student claimed some senior students have to "seek
physical consolation from the members of opposite sex many
times in a day" on campus and in public sight. To back her
claims, she provided specific examples and collected
photographic evidence.
Akhtar quoted the student's email in his blog. "Standing
at the main entrance, a girl stands on tip of her toes and
kisses a boy good bye; lying in the lawn in front of the
library, a boy rolls over the girl lying down beside him and
remains in this posture; sitting in the academic block, a boy
constantly rubs a girl’s leg....."
After furnishing this evidence, the student points out
that because of such behaviour, "aunties spread rumours that
doubt the chastity of girls studying in LUMS."
Advocating a "religious, cultured and social" environment
at the campus, the student asked the university administration
to draw out rules that outline an inter-gender code of conduct
on campus.
The email has elicit strong responses on the campus. One
male student responded with a "I have sinned" mail.
"I shave twice a week and my 'painchas' (trousers) hang
obstinately below my heels. I have a penchant for ties that
resemble the Christian cross and my satanic dress code is
causing me to stray far, far away from the straight path.
During the holy month (of Ramzan), instead of attending
Quranic recitals in the mosque, I was listening to the
demonic sounds of Pink Floyd," the student wrote further in
his email.
He blamed "deviant professors" for this transition, whose
theories made his moral-compass go awry.
Sheikh Umer Zaheer Tajwar, another recipient of the mail,
wrote in lumsdailystudent.com, "Larki, you had four years to
bring it up; why now? You have courageously tolerated this
fiesta, why are you pulling the plug on it when you have six
months left?"
Bureau Report