Funds linked to Imran Khan case to be spent on new university

What to do with £190 million recovered from a money-laundering case that led to the imprisonment of a former prime minister? For Pakistan, the answer is to set up a new university, drawing ire from critics concerned about the current state of the country’s higher education sector.

Prime minister Shehbaz Sharif has announced the development of Daanish University in Islamabad, using cash returned to the country by the UK’s National Crime Agency, which has been used as key evidence in a case that saw former prime minister Imran Khan jailed for corruption.

The provenance of the funding is complex. In 2019 British authorities seized £190 million in assets following an investigation into “dirty money” allegations surrounding Pakistani property tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain.

The money was returned to Pakistan later that year, when Khan was prime minister. In 2023, Pakistani authorities accused Khan of mishandling the funds, alleging he had made a deal with Riaz that saw the money used to pay the tycoon’s court fines in exchange for a donation of land by Riaz to Khan to allow the latter to set up his own university.

In January 2025, Khan was sentenced to 14 years in prison over corruption charges and the claim that the land received was a bribe – accusations Khan and his wife continue to challenge.

This left the question of what to do with the money, which has been returned to the federal government. Instead of absorbing it back into treasury funds, the prime minister has decided that there will be a university after all – one of his own design.

Punjab is already home to a network of Daanish schools – the name coming from the Urdu word for knowledge – set up by Shehbaz when he was chief minister of the region. These are free and aim to serve children from poor and marginalised backgrounds.

The new Daanish university – the first of its kind – will be granted autonomy to ensure it is unfettered by government interference, Shehbaz said. Money has also been set aside to offer scholarships to poorer students, with plans for the university to be funded by tuition fees paid by wealthier students in future.

“The institution will even compete with renowned universities of the world such as Oxford and Harvard,” the prime minister told local reporters.

For some, the investment in higher education is welcome. “Historically, recovered funds from corruption and financial crimes have often lacked transparency in their utilisation,” said Maleeha Ashraf, honorary postdoctoral fellow at University College London’s Institute of Education. “By directing this substantial amount toward higher education, the government sets a precedent for ensuring that recovered finances benefits society at large.”

However, the news comes as Pakistan’s existing public universities face a funding deficit, leading many to increase their tuition fees.

“This is a classic approach of the government – never fix anything because it is hard and not as glamorous as establishing new institutions and funding pet branded projects,” said Ayesha Razzaque, a higher education policy researcher and adviser based in Pakistan.

“There are plenty of problems facing the public higher education sector, both financial and non-financial. If the government was truly serious they would take steps to fix at least some of the hard problems.”

There are also questions about the sustainability of the proposed institution. “The new university will function for as long as money keeps flowing in,” said Razzaque. “You can’t expect a university to function in isolation from the ecosystem that surrounds it. There is nothing that is changing in that ecosystem.”

For Ashraf, however, the funding will provide “a much-needed boost to the sector by offering a new model of higher education excellence”.

helen.packer@timeshigherducation.com