Islamabad: Five Pakistani academics have been dismissed by the Punjab University for plagiarising a nuclear research paper from the findings of a prestigious Geneva-based scientific institute.

The dismissal of the lecturers from the university's Centre for High Energy Physics has shocked academia across the country.

The head of the centre, Fazl-e-Azeem, was sacked along with his colleagues Rashid Ahmad, Sohail Afzal Tahir, M Alam Saeed and Maqsood Ahmed. The orders for their dismissal were recently issued by Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool.

The lecturers were accused of plagiarising their Ph. D thesis from six different publications of the institute in Geneva.

"According to my personal reading of both articles, about 90 per cent of the later article by four of your faculty members is identical, word for word, with large segments of the earlier article written by our former director-general (Prof Llewellyn Smith)," said John Ellis, the advisor to the director-general of the European Centre for Nuclear Research in Geneva.

"I see no original idea of synthesis in the later article by your faculty members. Prof Llewellyn Smith's article contains 19 references to previous academic literature, whereas the article by your faculty members refers to no other articles," Ellis was quoted as saying by Newsline magazine in a letter he wrote to the vice-chancellor of Punjab University.

Ellis wrote to the vice-chancellor two years ago. The varsity initially took mild action against the teachers because they are believed to be linked to the Jamaat-e-Islami's student wing Islami Jamiat Talaba. 

Source : PTI