KU teacher moves court against media drive over harassment accusations

A Karachi University lecturer on Monday filed a petition in the Sindh High Court seeking an injunction against a media campaign of a private TV channel over a student accusing him of harassment.

Petitioner Syed Hassan Abbas said in his application that he has been teaching at KU’s Department of Petroleum Technology since 2009, and that he has had a spotless career.

Abbas said a female student had filed a complaint against him to the university’s registrar accusing him of harassment, but, he said, he had refuted the claim and submitted the facts. He said that on the incitement of the student, a private TV channel had started a campaign against the petitioner by way of constantly airing fabricated information about him since March 13.

The lecturer said he had sent a legal notice to the management of the channel for damaging his reputation and also asked the Mobina Town SHO to take necessary action against the management for harassing him.

He claimed that the female student had approached him for increasing the marks of her friends, and that when he refused to do so, a harassment campaign was launched against him.

He requested that the court restrain the private TV channel from airing allegedly baseless news against him, as well as direct the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority and the Mobina Town SHO to act in accordance with the relevant laws by entertaining his plea.

Motions filed in PA

An opposition lawmaker has filed adjournment motions demanding debate in the Sindh Assembly on the alleged harassment of the KU student as well as on a doctor being forbidden from speaking in Sindhi during duty hours, adds our correspondent.

Pakistan Muslim League-Functional MPA Nusrat Bano Sehar Abbasi submitted the motions to the provincial legislature’s secretariat on Monday seeking to highlight and debate the two issues.

She said that a female student of KU was harassed by her teacher, and that the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) had barred a female doctor from speaking in Sindhi during duty hours.

Through her adjournment motion on the KU issue, she demanded an investigation into incidents of harassment of female students at the university at the hands of their teachers. Later, talking to the media, the MPA said that female students at educational institutions were being harassed, and that their dignity and honour were at risk on campus.

She asked for a debate to discuss the issue, and recalled the instance of a provincial minister harassing her by making objectionable remarks during PA proceedings. Talking about her other adjournment motion, she lamented that the Sindhi language was yet to be accorded the status of an official language despite the passage of a resolution by the provincial legislature to that effect.

The opposition legislator said she has submitted a motion on the issue of a female doctor of the DUHS being barred from conversing in the Sindhi language during duty hours. She also said that important signboards in Sindhi should be installed in the province’s cities for people’s information.

Meanwhile, KU Vice-chancellor Dr Muhammad Ajmal Khan has directed chairpersons of all departments, centres and institutes of the university to form a three-member Harassment Watch Committee.