Home / Pakistan / PM Khan directs withdrawal of Zartaj Gul’s letter to Nacta for sister’s appointment

PM Khan directs withdrawal of Zartaj Gul’s letter to Nacta for sister’s appointment

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday took notice of the appointment of state minister and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Zartaj Gul’s sister to the National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta).

Special assistant to the prime minister Naeemul Haque tweeted that the premier had directed Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul to withdraw a letter she wrote to Nacta regarding her sister’s appointment.

“This was against the ethics of PTI, which has always opposed nepotism. No one in the PTI government can promote their relatives/friends by using their positions,” Haque said.

Haque appeared to be referring to a letter dated Feb 27, 2019, written by an individual in Zartaj’s office to Nacta, which cited a telephonic conversation regarding Shabnam Gul’s appointment in Nacta.

A copy of the letter is circulating on social media but could not be independently verified by Dawn.com. Nacta declined to comment on the authenticity of the letter received.

Shabnam Gul, a BPS-18 officer, was serving as assistant professor in the International Relations Department of the Lahore College for Women University (LCWU) and was appointed as director (BPS-19) in Nacta, Islamabad, on deputation for three years.

According to a Nacta notification, “The services of Ms Shabnam Gul, Assistant Professor, Lahore College for Women University (LCWU) are required for her posting against an available vacant post of Director (BS-19) in NACTA in Islamabad on a deputation basis.”

LCWU Vice Chancellor Dr Farkhanda Manzoor earlier told Dawn that Nacta had requisitioned that the services of Shabnam Gul be placed at its disposal.

The appointment drew ire on social media after it emerged that Shabnam had been disqualified as a researcher by Punjab University in 2007, and that the researcher’s studentship for an M.Phil degree was also cancelled on charges of plagiarism.

The complaint against the state minister’s sister was that she and another researcher of the Department of Kashmir Studies at University Oriental College had allegedly plagiarised from a Master’s degree thesis and research paper on Kashmiriyat and political parties of Kashmir by KH Khursheed. They had released a joint plagiarised book titled: Tareekh-i-Kashmir: 1947 to date, in 2006.

Separately, an unverified notification issued by LCWU also made the rounds on social media on Sunday.

The notification dated April 4, 2019, refers to a meeting that took place on March 6, in which the Advance Studies and Research Board had decided to allow Shabnam Gul and two others to continue their PhD research work at the university’s Political Science Department.

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