70 Striking Students Arrested

Pakistan: Police cracked down on protesting students of Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU), Islamabad, who continued the strikes despite the negotiations, on Monday.

The QAU had remained closed for more than two weeks since the students started protesting for their demands to be met.

The university admin agreed to most of the demands and students called of their protest after negotiation on Friday.

The administration decided to withdraw a planned 10 per cent hike in fees and announced that the university's syndicate meetings would also include students. 10 more demands were also accepted.

However, the Baloch Council - one of the six protesting groups - continued their protests over the administration not agreeing to restore expelled students, including their council chairman.

The authorities called the police which arrested more than 70 of the still protesting students.

"It has been brought to my notice that some ex-students and outsiders accompanied by the present students started disrupting the normal functioning of the departments and harassed the faculty and staff," a letter from the QAU Vice Chancellor (VC) Javed Ashraf to the chief commissioner Islamabad police, read.

He requested police force "to avert any untoward incident".

Some reported that students were beaten up and the police raided the hostel in search of protesters.

Disgusting police violence at QAU, campus & hostels raided, students beaten up like animals & randomly picked up. For organizing a strike. pic.twitter.com/jVHo1mcYUQ

— Ammar Rashid (@AmmarRashidT) October 23, 2017