Award-winning scholar suspected of further plagiarism

ISLAMABAD: Though the government is yet to take any decision to cancel a prestigious award conferred on an academic blacklisted for plagiarism, another case of alleged plagiarism surfaced against him.

On March 23, President Mamnoon Hussain conferred Tamgha-i-Imtiaz on Dr Masroor Ikram, an HEC declared blacklisted academic, who teaches at the Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS).

Dr Ikram was among the four professors of PIEAS who were found guilty of plagiarism by the HEC.

All the four were declared as the “blacklisted scholars” by the HEC in January this year for at least two years. However, the authorities concerned concealed the fact from the president who conferred the award on the academic on the Pakistan Day.

Also read: ‘Blacklisted’ academic conferred award

Later, when the matter was highlighted in the media, the Prime Minister Office sought details from the HEC to determine the facts. Sources said an inquiry was still under process into the matter. Prime Minister’s spokesman Musadiq Malik was not available for comments.

Meanwhile, the sources told Dawn that the professor also committed plagiarism in another research paper which was published in the international Journal of Cancer Research in 2005.

According to a copy of the research paper available with Dawn, Dr Ikram along with Dr Shamraz Firdous and another author got published a research paper, “Measurement of the optical properties of breast tissue in vitro using mueller matrix polarimetry” in the research journal in 2005. The sources said a significant portion of the paper was copied from various publications.

Dr Shamraz is also among those four faculty members of the PIEAS who were declared blacklisted by the HEC.

The sources said the research paper of Dr Ikram and Dr Shamraz was found copied with 70 per cent similarity index, 41 internet sources, 59 publications and nine per cent student papers.

However, they said the paper was not yet declared plagiarised by the HEC as so far no one has taken up the case with the plagiarism committee of the HEC. Secondly, the sources said, the paper was published in the year 2005 while the HEC started detecting plagiarism cases in 2007.

When contacted, Dr Ikram owned the research paper published in 2005. However, he added: “Without seeing the alleged copied material which you are talking about, I can’t pass further comments.”

In reply to a question about Tamgha-i-Imtiaz, he said: “I have filed an appeal against the HEC for declaring me blacklisted and a decision in this regard is awaited.”

Source: Dawn