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islamabad - While the plagiarism case of COMSATS acting Rector Raheel Qamar still remains undecided, another research paper in which his name has been included as co-author has been found plagiarised, The Nation learned on Monday.

The Higher Education Commission (HEC’s) plagiarism checking software ‘Turnitin’ detected 59% similarity of index in the research paper ‘The Genetic Characterization of Familial Hypercholesterolemia in Pakistan’.

The research paper was published in 2011 in the national Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences. The similarity index of the research paper was 59%, while 26% was plagiarised from a single source.

Meanwhile, the HEC policy and guidelines while writing a research paper state that the overall similarity of index should be less than 19% and from a single source less than 5percent.

“If the report has similarity index <=19% then benefit of doubt may be given to the author, but in case, any single source has similarity index >=5% without citation then it needs to be revised,” said the Turnitin guidelines.

According to the report available with The Nation, the research paper co-authored by acting rector COMSATS has been found similar to another research article named ‘A common polymorphism decreases low-density Lipoprotein receptor exon 12 splicing efficiency and associates with increased cholesterol’ published in 2007.

The research paper was published in the journal Human Molecular Genetics and authored by Haiyan Zhu, H. Michael Tucker, Karrie E. Grear1, James F. Simpson, Alisa K. Manning, L. Adrienne Cupples and Steven Estus.

Meanwhile, ‘The Genetic Characterization of Familial Hypercholesterolemia in Pakistan’ in 2011 was authored by Sobia Rafiq, Nuzhat Ahmed, Ann Soutar and Raheel Qamar.

According to the reports the primary source of the content with 26% similarity index was accessed from hm.oxfordjournals.org. 5% was accessed from repositorio.insa.pt, 4% from www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov and 4% from Tosi, I. “Genetic defects causing familial hypercholesterolaemia: Identification of deletions and duplications in the LDL-receptor gene and summary of all mutations found in patients attending the Hammersmith Hospital Lipid Clinic”, Atherosclerosis, 2007-09”.

According to the ‘Turnitin’ report, 24 other primary sources with less than 4% were also accessed for writing the said research paper.

According to the HEC policy for plagiarism regarding the co-author, he/she is ‘deemed to be equally responsible for any plagiarism committed in a published paper presented to or published in a journal or presented at a conference’.

The major penalty for any researcher found guilty of plagiarism includes blacklisting of his name and dismissal from service.

Earlier, 65% plagiarism was reported in the research paper ‘Wheat Genomics: Challenges and Alternative Strategies, co-authored by acting rector COMSATS Prof. Dr. Raheel Qamar.

HEC and Executive Director (ED) HEC Dr. Junaid Zaidi had formed two separate inquiry committees to determine the plagiarism of the acting rector.

Meanwhile, ED COMSATS Dr. Junaid Zaidi talking to The Nation said that he was out of the country and the committee has not submitted its report to him till now.

“The committee was given seven days however I have not received the report till now,” he said.

Registrar COMSATS University, Dr. Faheem Quershi on behalf of the institution said that “we have thoroughly checked the paper and the similarity exists only in using the ‘terms’.

Most of the similarity is that of scientific terms which are very hard to change.

Prof Raheel Qamar’s work is based on human genetics where material and methods can show little high similarity as compared to others because similar techniques are used by the entire geneticist to get the population specific genetic data. Prof. Qamar facilitates the author to use the techniques to analyse the data.

Dr. Faheem responded that proper citation has been done in the said research paper. “Its a duly-sided citation,” he said.

He also said that the guidelines of the plagiarism policy need to be revised as quantum of knowledge in the world is being doubled after every 13 months.

He said that the current policy is being used as a tool for defaming researchers because of professional rivalry.

“Authorities should consider revising the policy,” he said.

HEC spokesperson Aayesha Ikram responding to a query sent by The Nation said that it is informed that COMSATS has already initiated inquiry and we have to wait for the outcome of that committee.