Alleged sexual abuse: Victims provided psychological therapy to cope with trauma

MANSEHRA: The Victim Support Service Unit of the Police Department on Saturday met the schoolgirls who were allegedly sexually abused by their teacher and provided them psychosocial therapy to bring them out of the trauma following their video clips that went viral on social media.

“Though schoolgirls were harassed during their education in matriculation, they have gone through trauma following their video clips that went viral on social media,” Dr Lubna Safeer, a psychologist and head of Victim Support Unit told reporters here. She held sessions with victims in the Lassan Nawab area of the district.

Mansehra police arrested the accused identified as Mohammad Tufail, a schoolteacher of the Government High School Chandor in the Lassan Nawab area of the district earlier this week.

“The schoolgirls were first taken to a party where their normal videos were captured by the accused. Later he would start blackmailing them,” she said.

She said that the obscene video clips, which accused teachers used to blackmail schoolgirls, were also shared with the brothers of the affected girls. a“The accused blackmailed the girls and sexually harassed them multiple times. He also threatened them to fail them in examinations,” she said.

She said the girls feared that their families would not allow them to continue their education if they came to know about the videos.

District Police Officer Shafiullah Khan Gandapur said that he constituted a team that arrested the schoolteacher under sections 376 and 506 of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 53 of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Protection and Welfare Act, 2010.

“We have seized dozens of video clips, computers and other gadgets from the accused,” Gandapur said.

He said that his department had taken up that case with the Education Department high-ups to seek their help in the investigation and get the accused suspended from job.