One of the many intriguing details to emerge from the Guardian’s investigation into the plagiarism row engulfing Cambridge University’s “superstar academic” Professor Jason Arday concerns the institution’s response to the physical threats he reported – and raises fresh questions about why no comparable response appears to have followed in another similarly serious case repeatedly brought to its attention by the Committee for Academic Freedom (CAF) and other human-rights and campaigning organisations.
Alongside its scrutiny of Arday’s academic record, the Guardian reported that he “claims to have been the victim of a campaign of physical abuse and intimidation”.
In support of that account, the newspaper cited an open letter sent to the government minister Jacqui Smith in July 2025, in which Arday – the youngest black professor in Cambridge’s history – described a series of alleged incidents, including that he had been “threatened with a knife, physically assaulted and spat on”, and that bananas and bullets had been “posted to him via the university campus”.
The Guardian also reported that Arday claimed, in a subsequent interview, to have been confronted inside his faculty building by a masked man who threatened to harm him unless he resigned, with the alleged intruder evading detection on both occasions.
These are exceptionally grave allegations, describing apparent breaches of campus security and threats to the physical safety of a member of academic staff. It is therefore hardly surprising that, in response to the Guardian’s questions, a Cambridge spokesperson said:
“As soon as Professor Arday shared concerns with the faculty a number of enhanced security measures were urgently taken in response, with the advice and continuing engagement of university security and the police. These include the installation of panic alarms, screening of emails, post and packages, upgraded CCTV and revised security protocols.”
In statutory as well as common-sense terms, this is precisely how a university should respond when an academic reports serious threats that are, or may be, connected with their work: acknowledge the danger, assess and escalate it urgently, and put appropriate protections in place.
But Cambridge’s statement also tacitly confirms that the University has established mechanisms for screening emails and deliveries, upgrading CCTV, installing alarms and adapting security arrangements around an individual.
All of which makes it harder to understand why no comparable process appears to have been activated for CAF member and former postgraduate researcher Roshaan Khattak, or why a University that moved swiftly to reassure the Guardian about its support for Professor Arday has yet to explain what substantive steps, if any, it took to protect him.
Khattak is an exiled British-Pakistani documentary filmmaker who remained enrolled at Cambridge until December 2025. His research concerns alleged state misconduct, enforced disappearances and related abuses in Pakistan’s Balochistan province – a highly securitised region where intimidation, surveillance and violence against journalists, researchers and human-rights defenders are well documented.
The dangers facing those who pursue such work in exile are equally well documented. Sajid Hussain, a journalist who reported on alleged abuses affecting the Baloch community, was found dead in the Fyris river outside Uppsala after seeking refuge in Sweden. Karima Baloch, a prominent Baloch human-rights activist who had fled to Canada, disappeared in Toronto and was found dead the following day. Her husband, himself a Pakistani activist, had previously received repeated anonymous warnings that she could be targeted.
According to a letter sent to Cambridge by Khattak’s barrister in October 2025, he repeatedly warned Wolfson College and the University between July and September 2024 of security risks arising from his profile as an exiled human-rights activist, and asked for safer arrangements. The letter says that no protective or relocation measures were put in place and that, in December 2024, Wolfson cancelled Khattak’s accommodation contract and removed his access to the building while his possessions, sensitive research materials and data remained inside.
That same month, Khattak received an anonymous message which, in an apparent reference to the deaths of Hussain and Baloch, warned: “Don’t forget even Cambridge and [the] UK is not safe. They can get anywhere, Sweden, Germany, Canada… Don’t be stupid.”
The message arrived just days after he had organised an online solidarity meeting concerning the detention of his cousin, Idris Khattak, a prominent researcher and human-rights advocate who was forcibly disappeared and later convicted in a secret military trial. UN experts have publicly called for his release after years in detention.
After reporting the threat to the police, Khattak wrote to the President of Wolfson and the University administration, informed them of the message and requested immediate intervention. Yet again, no coherent safety plan appears to have followed.
Khattak subsequently lodged formal complaints concerning his safety, with his barrister describing the response as one of delay, opacity and a failure to remediate.
By July 2025, the case had attracted parliamentary attention, with a cross-party Early Day Motion calling on Cambridge to take remedial action. In October, a joint letter to the Office for Students (OfS) – signed by Freedom House, ARTICLE 19, the National Union of Journalists and others – cited Khattak’s case in calling for stronger protections for researchers facing foreign-state intimidation.
The danger intensified in November 2025, when Khattak says he received explicit death threats linked to his research. The messages referred to specific dates and incidents, including the theft of his filming equipment in Sweden while he was investigating the death of Sajid Hussain. They also contained his passport number and other confidential information that would have been extremely difficult for an ordinary private individual to obtain.
Khattak notified the University on 17 November, raising concerns about his safety and the impact of the threats on his ability to continue his academic work. After receiving no substantive response, he contacted Cambridge again on 15 December.
On 18 December, the final day of his enrolment, he forwarded the correspondence to a College Tutor at Wolfson, seeking assistance and clarification. Later that day, he was informed that his enrolment had ended and that the University no longer owed him any duty of protection. What he did not receive, however, was any substantive account of what, if anything, had been done in response to the threats while he remained enrolled.
It was at this stage that CAF became involved, since the threats were not merely a matter of Roshaan Khattak’s personal safety, but had been directed at him because of his lawful academic work. As such, they raised important questions about Cambridge’s responsibility to protect lawful research from intimidation – and, by implication, to secure the academic freedom of its staff and students.
Although some of Khattak’s underlying concerns arose before the relevant provisions of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 came into force on 1 August 2025, the further threats were reported in November 2025, while he remained enrolled at Cambridge.
Under the strengthened statutory regime, universities must take “reasonably practicable steps” to secure freedom of speech within the law for their students and staff. Guidance issued by the OfS, the regulator for English universities, makes clear that threats connected with lawful research may require security assistance, interim protective measures or other arrangements enabling that research to continue.
In determining what is “reasonably practicable”, the OfS identifies physical safety as a relevant consideration where there is credible evidence of a specific danger. By contrast, whether the speech is controversial or offensive, whether domestic or foreign governments approve of the viewpoint expressed, and any reputational consequences for the institution are not relevant to the question of whether steps should be taken to secure that lawful speech or academic activity.
Yet, on the information available to CAF, it remained unclear how, if at all, either the University or Wolfson College had responded. Like Khattak’s barrister, we had seen no evidence that his reports had been acknowledged, triaged or escalated under the relevant procedures, or that any assessment had been made of the protective steps available while he remained enrolled.
CAF therefore wrote to Cambridge’s Vice-Chancellor on 13 February 2026, asking several questions: first, whether the University had treated Khattak’s November and December notifications as engaging its post-August 2025 duties; second, what assessment, if any, it had made of the risk that the threats would chill lawful academic work; third, what measures it had considered to enable him to continue that work while enrolled; fourth, who held responsibility for triage and escalation; and fifth, what contemporaneous records existed of any assessment or action taken.
Because Cambridge had by then decided not to allow Khattak to progress to doctoral study – although he remained enrolled until 18 December – we also asked whether the approaching end of his enrolment had affected the University’s view of its obligations.
The answer to that question is particularly important because one possible explanation for the apparent inaction is that, with Khattak’s enrolment nearing its end, the University did not consider it worthwhile to put protective measures in place. But Cambridge’s statutory duty continued for as long as he remained enrolled. The proximity of his final day may well have affected which measures were “reasonably practicable”, but it did not extinguish the duty while he was still a student – particularly when he remained exposed to reported threats to his life.
Nearly six months later, Cambridge has still not answered CAF’s letter, while Khattak says he has never been given a clear account of what concrete steps, if any, the University took to protect him.
The measures taken for Professor Arday demonstrate what the University can do when its protective machinery is engaged – as Cambridge was quick to emphasise when questioned by the Guardian.
So why, when an enrolled postgraduate researcher reported explicit death threats apparently connected with his lawful academic work, can neither Khattak, CAF nor the parliamentarians and human-rights organisations that have repeatedly raised his case obtain any explanation of what Cambridge did – or why no comparable protective machinery appears to have been engaged at all?
CAF will put that question to Cambridge again this week, and once more seek clarification of the issues raised in our original letter. Unless we can persuade a Guardian journalist to ask them, however, we won’t hold our breath for an answer.