Students furnish the media with ‘evidence’: Sexual harassment

MULTAN, Aug 28: Rejecting the verdict of a two-member committee of the Bahauddin Zakariya University’s syndicate, two alleged sexual harassment victims on Thursday showed up at a press conference and produced “evidence corroborating their claim”.

The CDs the two psychology department students distributed among the journalists had the recorded statement of a female teacher having admitted that the girls were forced to take off their clothes.

The two-member inquiry team had dismissed the application on Aug 23 with the observation that the allegations levelled by the students were false and lacked substance.

“The biased and unfair decision has made us hold a press conference and make public the recorded material proving the allegations,” the girls said.

They alleged that the university administration was trying to absolve the five teachers of the crime they (the academics) had committed.

They also accused the inquiry committee members of using derogatory language against them.

The students said they had produced the recorded material before the inquiry committee, but it still claimed that they (the victims) had failed to give substantive material to prove their allegations.

They declined committee’s offer to appear again in the paper during which they were ‘caught cheating’. They demanded constitution of a committee that could impartially probe the matter.

The two students had submitted a complaint to the BZU vice-chancellor on June 13, claiming that they were attempting their psychotherapy paper (on May 23) when invigilators, on the pretext of cheating, stopped them from continuing with the examination and sexually harassed them in a private room.
Source: Dawn
Date:8/29/2008