At the University of Lahore was not just the loss of one student’s life. It was the collapse of a system that is supposed to protect, guide, and uplift young people. It was the result of cruelty, silence, and indifference coming together in the most heartbreaking way.
Owais, a fifth-semester Pharm-D student, was his parents’ only son. He had three sisters and a father suffering from heart disease. He came from Kamalia, Faisalabad, carrying on his shoulders the hopes of his entire family. Like thousands of other students in Pakistan, he believed that education was the only way to change his family’s future.
But dreams often collide with harsh realities.
Owais was struggling financially. To pay his previous semester’s fee, he sold his motorcycle and asked people for help. For daily travel, he depended on a friend. Sometimes, this meant he reached the university 10 minutes late. It was not carelessness or lack of discipline—it was poverty.
He explained his situation again and again to a female teacher. Instead of understanding, he was humiliated repeatedly in front of the class. He was asked to leave lectures. His explanations were ignored. The message was clear: his problems did not matter.
In the Pharmacy Department, there is a strict rule: if a student is short on attendance in even one subject, the entire semester must be repeated. On paper, this may seem like discipline. But for a poor student, this rule becomes a punishment. Repeating a semester means more fees, more expenses, and more pressure on a family that is already struggling to survive.
The final blow came when, in front of everyone, Owais was told:
“I am not your mother’s servant that I should wait for you.”
These words broke something inside him.
He slipped into depression. He felt defeated, ashamed, and hopeless. And then, in the most tragic moment, he jumped from the fifth floor. Around 8 pm, Owais lost his life.
But the story does not end there.
What followed was perhaps even more disturbing. Almost an hour after the incident—while his body was still there—the university administration went ahead with its International Cultural Day celebrations. Music played. Lights were on. The event continued with full energy and cheer.
A young man had just died. A family had been destroyed forever. And yet, the show went on.
This forces us to ask painful but necessary questions.
Do poor students have any value in our education system?
Is attendance more important than a human life?
Is there no accountability for teachers’ behavior?
Have universities become businesses instead of places of learning and compassion?
This was not simply a suicide. It was institutional killing.
When rules are enforced without humanity, when teachers forget kindness, when administrations prioritize events over empathy, tragedies like this become inevitable. Silence from society only encourages this cruelty to continue.
