Judicial probe demanded in girl student harassment case

TIMERGARA: The Malakand Youth Assembly on Monday condemned the alleged harassment of a girl student by a teacher at the University of Malakand and demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident.

A teacher at the university was arrested and suspended from service a day earlier on charges of harassing a female student.In a joint statement, Ubaid Ullah Jan, Qazi Hanif Ullah, and Naikdar Khan asserted that this incident could have been prevented if the accused-who had allegedly harassed a foreign student at the university some years ago-had been given exemplary punishment at the time. They urged the government to immediately replace the current marking system in colleges and universities with a mechanism where teachers from the same institution have no role in grading answer sheets.

The assembly’s office-bearers called for the immediate restoration of student unions in educational institutions, emphasizing that such unions served as platforms for nurturing students’ abilities and providing them with protection against blackmail and harassment.They stressed that participating in student unions was a constitutional right and essential for safeguarding students from exploitation.