Protesters demand probe into ‘harassment of students’ at Balochistan varsity

Showing solidarity with the students and teachers of the University of Balochistan (UoB) protesting against campus harassment, students and political and civil society activists staged a protest outside the Karachi Press Club on Saturday.

For the past several weeks, UoB students and academic staff have been protesting over the alleged harassment and blackmail of students at the campus unearthed by the Federal Investigation Agency.

The participants of the protest, organised by the Baloch Students Council Lyari, lamented that the harassment scandal had severely affected the atmosphere of education in the Balochistan province in general and at the UoB in particular. Parveen Naz, Hani Baloch, Akhar Bahadur, Zahid Barakzai and Asif Murad Baloch were among the prominent speakers.

The protesters carried banners and placards inscribed with slogans such as “remove the BoU VC” and “no to harassment”. The scandal had shaken students’ trust in educational institutions, participants said and demanded a comprehensive probe to bring the culprits to book.

They said that harassment cases were very common in academic institutions in Pakistan and in most cases women did not wish to file complaints against their harassers to avoid intimidation and vilification because they feared that taking such action could result in their families forcing them to quit studying.

Around two months ago, the Balochistan High Court had directed the FIA to look into the sexual harassment reports that had emerged from the BoU. According to FIA findings, both female and male students “were being blackmailed by some staff members through “objectionable” videos of them, recorded through CCTV cameras hidden at various places on the campus, including its washrooms.