The Shah Abdul Latif University Khairpur has initiated criminal proceedings to curb the long-running business of fake academic credentials, after identifying 147 forged degrees and lodging first information reports (FIRs) with the police against the beneficiaries.
According to university officials, the counterfeit credentials, including LLB, LLM, BA, BSc, BCom, as well as bachelor’s and master’s degrees, were submitted to the university for verification by various institutions. The degrees were purportedly issued between 1994 and 2024; however, investigations revealed that no admission, examination or academic record for the named candidates existed in the university’s archives.
Officials said the individuals concerned did not belong to Khairpur or adjoining districts but hailed from Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Sindh and other regions, indicating an organised and geographically widespread operation.
A senior professor told The News that the sale of fake SALU degrees for sums ranging from Rs200,000 to Rs500,000 had allegedly continued for years. In some cases, he claimed, the bogus credentials were quietly “verified” through collusion and administrative silence. The present administration, he added, has decided to act decisively to restore the university’s credibility and dismantle the fake degree racket.
Following internal scrutiny by the examinations department, the university formally declared all 147 credentials fake and notified to relevant departments and employers. To facilitate criminal investigation, the registrar wrote to the police requesting registration of FIRs and a comprehensive probe to trace how and through which channels the degrees were procured, so that all facilitators and beneficiaries could be brought to book.
In the letter to the station house officer, the registrar stated that verification by the controller of examinations had established that the 147 educational certificates were forged and that the concerned individuals had neither admission nor examination records at the university. The issuance and use of fake certificates, the letter said, constituted a criminal offence that had caused serious damage to the reputation of a public sector university.
“With the approval of the competent authority,” the registrar requested the police to register FIRs under the applicable provisions of law and proceed with investigations against all those involved.
University officials said further action would follow as the inquiry progresses, reiterating that the administration would pursue zero tolerance against fraud to safeguard academic standards and public trust.
