Rape attempt at Punjab University hostel

Intruder escaped after student raised alarm.

LAHORE: A rape attempt was reported by a female student at Punjab University Girls Hostel on Thursday night. The man involved escaped after the girl raised a ruckus, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The girl, an MPhil Behavourial Sciences student, said a man entered her room at around 3 am and tried to rape her.

When she cried out, she said, the man raced way. Other students soon made their way to her room. At around 4 am assistant superintendent Qudsia arrived at the hostel and tried to pacify the students.

The students, however, would not calm down and at around 5 am hostel warden Farah and close to 6 in the morning Hall Council chairman Ather Amin arrived at the scene.

A student who resides at the hostel spoke with the The Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity and said that a man entered the hostel around 3 am. She said that he went to the first floor and started checking for open doors.

He entered a room but upon finding two women there who woke up, changed his mind and stepped out. She said he then went to the right wing of the hostel and entered a room where a student was fast asleep.

She said once the sleeping woman woke up she cried out for help. She said that she also tried to switch on the lights while the man attempted to pin her down.

The woman kept shouting and after about five minutes the intruder fled.

Another student said that the girls in the room the man had initially tried to enter had a vague sense of a man peeping in. She said that the man seemed to know his way around the hostel.

Amin while speaking with The Express Tribune said that the student had most likely had a nightmare. He said even so the matter was being investigated. He claimed that the guards on duty saw no one enter or exit.

One of the students insisted that two of the guards at the entrance were missing from duty that night.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th, 2011.