Harassment complaint: Seminary students protest police inaction

Students said some men had been harassing them on their way to and back from the seminary for several weeks.

FAISALABAD:

Dozens of female students of a seminary on Saturday staged a demonstration to protest what they called police’s failure to take action against a group they accused of harassing students on their way to the seminary.     

The protesters said Madina Town police had yet to take action in an FIR they registered against some people harassing them on their way to the seminary.

The girls, students at Madrassa Umar Garden Tezab Mill, and their parents gathered at the District Council Chowk near Civil Secretariat and staged a sit-in for over an hour. Ayesha Raheel, one of the protestors, told The Express Tribune some men had been harassing students on their way to and back from the seminary for several weeks. She said they had reported the matter to the seminary administration and the police but no action was taken against them.

Samina Khalil, mother of a protesting student, said if the practice continued, she would be forced to stop her daughter from going to the seminary.

The administration confirmed that complaints had been received and said that the matter was promptly reported to Madina Town police. But, they said, the police had yet to take action in the matter.

“We have suggested their parents to accompany them in their commute to and from the seminary until the police take some action against these people,” a spokesman for the seminary said.

Station House Officer Hafiz Muhammad Irfan denied that the police were reluctant to proceed against the people harassing the students. He said the complainant’s failure to identify the suspects was the reason for delay in action against them. “We have asked the students to provide us with some information about the suspects so they can be tracked down,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 29^th, 2012.