Rape outcry built on lies: CM

Maryam criticises suspension of college campus registration

LAHORE:

Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif has asserted that attempts to instigate a string of protests in the province over allegations of a rape incident were part of PTI's unfinished agenda that it had failed to accomplish in Islamabad and elsewhere.

Addressing a press conference on the matter, the chief minister announced a swift action against those involved in spreading propaganda.

She said the entire matter had been built on lies, which had later been exploited by political actors.

There was no complainant, she stressed, adding that all those whose names had been floated as the alleged victims had been interviewed and had denied such an incident. She said the girl who had initially been named in the social media was not on the campus on the day when the incident was claimed to have happened. The said the students had suffered a back injury and had undergone treatment in a hospital.

The CM said she had personally looked into the facts of the case and also chaired a meeting of the fact-finding committee to ascertain the reality, after which she had found out that the girl was not a victim of rape but a cheap conspiracy.

She said the Punjab government would become the complainant in the case against those who had spread propaganda in this regard to instigate students.

Apparently alluding to the PTI, she said a political party had tried to kick start a campaign, of protest, arson and rioting, tactfully timed with the SCO summit in a bid to sully the country's image. She said the party was actually of a group of terrorists who were bent upon impeding the progress of the country. She alleged that the party had used its touts to get the desired results.

The chief minister was flanked by a student of the college whose video regarding the incident had gone viral and a teacher of the Lahore College of Woman who happened to be a sister of Zartaj Gull, whose video had also surfaced regarding the protests.

The girl said she was not a student of the same campus so did not have any first-hand information about then matter. She said that she had bene given a script that she had read to a camera. However, she went on to add that her video had gone viral but a video of a student who was a witness had not gained traction.

The chief minister said there was no eyewitness of the incident as there was no incident. Another video of a person claiming that the victim had died and stating the next day that it was a lie was shown during the presser as an example of how the issue had snowballed.

Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz said the Punjab Group of Colleges belonged to a respectable man who also owned a media house.

She said she had also questioned her education minister as to why the registration of the campus had bene suspended. Regarding his statement about erasure of evidence and a cover up, the CM said the minister had clarified that this was what students had told him.

The Punjab Police had also maintained the same stance regarding the purported incident from the beginning. Also, prior to the fact-finding committee report, the FIA had already formed a combined investigation team. The high-powered fact finding committee headed by the chief secretary also made its interim report public, exonerating the educational institution.