LAHORE: The Punjab Higher Education Department has advised all the publicand private-sector universities and institutes in the province to nurture nationalism among their students.

Addressed to vice chancellors and rectors of the universities and institutes in the province, a directive reads: `... It has been pointed out by various security agencies that research topics being given to the students in the universities of the province are of anti-Pakistan and anticultural in nature.

`The competent authority has taken a serious notice of this situation and desired that the academia should play a constructive role in nurturing nationalism amongst the youth of this country. It has further been desired that the concerned quarters may be sensitised to avoid inculcation of anticultural and anti-Pakistan sentiment amongst the students by giving such topics for debate and research,` says the directive a copy of which is available with Dawn.

A number of public-sector university officials admitted to have received the directive but no one was ready to comment on it.

However, a faculty member of a private university said the directive should be viewed in the backdrop of the `forced cancellation of a debate on issues that adversely affect the state of Pakistan today` at a premier institution of Lahore.