ISLAMABAD: The board of governors (BoG) of the International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) on Friday showed its ‘satisfaction’ over the university administration’s handling of an alleged rape case in the university hostel.

The BoG, headed by IIUI Rector Dr Masoom Yasinzai, met on Friday to discuss the single point agenda of sexual assault on a student in the hostel.

The incident took place on Friday last but after a gap of a week the university got an FIR registered on Thursday.

The BoG, however, directed the IIUI administration to take action against those ‘falsely propagating’ the incident to defame the university.

“Today, our BoG in its meeting showed satisfaction over the efforts of the IIUI administration for rightfully handling the case. However, the BoG directed the university to take action against those elements who are running a fake campaign against the IIUI,” said the university’s spokesperson, Nasir Farid.

Asked why the FIR of the incident was delayed for a week, he said: “Initially, the victim was not forthcoming to register the FIR, so later we decided to get the case registered on behalf of the university.”

BoG directs university admin to take action against those ‘falsely propagating’ incident

He said the FIR had been registered and one of the alleged rapists, an IIUI student, had been arrested by the police.

The FIR was registered in response to a complaint lodged by IIUI security supervisor Shaukat Mehmood Abbasi at the Sabzi Mandi police station under section 377 (unnatural offences) of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

According to the FIR, the 24-year-old was brought to the university by a student on June 18. Later, the student called another student and they raped him. It said a security guard of the university spotted the youth when he came out of the hostel room and asked him for identification.

The young man told the guard that he had come to the university himself and later the two students took him to the hostel and raped him.

A police officer told Dawn that the victim had refused to get his medical examination conducted.

After registration of the case, the police arrested one of the students, while efforts are in progress to arrest the other, the officer said.

The investigators are also trying to trace the victim to get his statement, he added.The IIUI initially did not show any serious interest in registration of the FIR, stating that the victim did not want to get the FIR registered. However, when the issue was highlighted on social media the university was forced to get the case registered on Thursday.

Following the incident, the IIUI expelled both the students and suspended the concerned security guards.

The rape incident took place in a room where one of the alleged rapists was illegally residing because of the influence of his brother, who was serving as the resident house tutor (RHT) - a post meant for senior faculty/administrator to guide students. But the IIUI appointed a contractual superintendent on the post.

A faculty member of the IIUI told Dawn that the incident should be properly investigated as how the alleged rapist was illegally residing in the room where he had invited the student of another university. Why RHT and hostel warden allowed them entry.

“Why security officers did not take notice of the incident?” The faculty member said the provost in the past had been removed on corruption charges while the chief security officer had been sacked on alleged wrongdoing. Later, however, both were given their positions back. He said years after his removal, the chief security officer was rehired a few months ago without advertising the post.

But the university spokesperson said after the incident the RHT had been removed from the post.

About the hostel warden and the chief security officer, he said the warden was removed but charges against him could not be proven, therefore, he was restored.

Similarly, he said, the security officer many years ago was sent packing as his contract was not extended, but “we rehired him last year due to his experience and best presentation,” he said.

In response to a question about skipping the competitive process for hiring the chief security officer, the spokesperson said the security officer was rehired due to his best presentation.

“We called three persons for giving presentation and he was selected,” the spokesperson said, adding some elements after the rape case were raising old and unproved issues just to defame the university administration.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2021