Claim: A lecturer at the Islamia College University (ICU) in Peshawar, who was shot dead on 19 February 2023, was involved in drug peddling.
Fact: The lecturer, Dr Bashir Ahmad, was acquitted of all charges in a case of drug peddling that was brought against him in 2017. He was formally cleared in 2019, according to a court order available with Soch Fact Check.
On 20 February 2023, Facebook user ‘FaRid Akhtar’ posted a visual (archive) showing a newspaper clipping, which carries two stories with the respective headlines as follows:
- “اسلامیہ کالج یونیورسٹی انگلش ڈیپارٹمنٹ کا پروفیسر چوکیدار کے ہاتھوں قتل [Professor of Islamia College University’s English Department killed by a guard]”
- “اسلامیہ کالج یونیوسٹی پشاور کا مقتول پرو فیسر منشیات فروش نکلا [The deceased professor of Islamia College University Peshawar turned out to be a drug dealer]”
The post surfaced shortly after news (archive) broke that a guard at Peshawar’s Islamia College University (ICU) had allegedly shot dead Dr Bashir Ahmad, a lecturer at the varsity’s Department of English, following a verbal altercation. The accused, who was identified as Sher Muhammad, has reportedly been arrested from the Karak district, a 21 February news report (archive) stated.
The reports also claimed that the deceased and the accused had heated arguments in the past and this time around, it ended fatally.
The ICU’s Teaching Staff Association also took action, convening (archive) a meeting under its president, Professor Dr Izhar Ahmad, that called for an investigation into the murder, condemned the newspaper for its “baseless” reporting and issued a defamation notice (archive), criticised the university for negligence in security, and demanded (archive) the release of “full and genuine” closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage of the killing.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check found that the news clipping is from the Daily Aaj newspaper and available in its e-paper, screenshots of which are provided below:
Soch Fact Check obtained records of the case, “State v. Bashir Ahmad,” which was heard and decided upon in the court of Peshawar Additional Sessions Judge Tanveer Iqbal. The first information report (FIR) — titled No. 28, dated 12 June 2017 and instituted in the court on 31 October 2017 — was registered at the Regi Model Town Police Station.
The conclusion of the judgement reads as follows:
“As a necessary corollary to what has been discussed above, it is held that the complainant and other prosecution witnesses withheld the evidence by their conduct as they consistently avoided to offer their testimony for two and a half years and during such period, the accused facing trial has been facing the agonies of litigation and has been subjected to victimization by complainant / SHO.
“In these circumstances there is no probability of the accused facing trial, being convicted of the offence he is charged with. The alleged crime thus has gone unpunished.
“Thus by allowing application u/s 265-K Cr.PC, the accused facing trial namely Bashir Ahmad is acquitted from the charged [sic] leveled against him. Sureties of the accused are absolved from their liabilities. Case property be disposed off after expiry of [the] period of appeal/revision. File is consigned to [the] record room after completion. Announced in open court on this [sic] 23rd day of November 2019.”
We also ascertained that the text of the second headline, which is the subject of this fact-check, is word-to-word the same as those published by Geo News Urdu (archive) and the Daily Jang (archive) back on 13 June 2017 — only with the addition of the word, “مقتول,” or “deceased,” in accordance with his murder.
Moreover, Soch Fact Check found a post (archive) on the Facebook profile of Dr Bashir Ahmad in which he had announced being “acquitted from the baseless charge of smuggling narcotics”.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the claim here, here, here, here, and here on Facebook.
Conclusion: Soch Fact Check has found that the report of involvement of the lecturer, Dr Bashir Ahmad, in drug peddling is old and he was cleared by the court of all charges in 2019.