Bail granted to six suspects of ‘KU harassment incident’

A local court on Friday granted bail to six ‘teenagers’ who were arrested a day earlier for allegedly harassing IBA students at the University of Karachi (KU). The court also sought an investigation report from the police within 14 days.

The Mubina Town police presented the suspects, who are said to be minors, before a judicial magistrate of District East to seek their physical remand for interrogation.

However, the defence counsel objected to the physical remand and insisted that his clients were not adults and the case against them was without any merit. He requested the court to grant bail to the suspects.

The judge approved the bail and dismissed the investigation officer’s request for remand, ordering the suspects to submit sureties of Rs20,000 each to secure their release.

The suspects, who are said to be residents of the KU’s staff colony, were handed over by the varsity administration to police on Thursday after students of the main campus of the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), which is located inside the KU, complained on social media of an alleged harassment and intimidation incident on the campus.

The issue surfaced when on the night between Wednesday and Thursday, an IBA student, Syed Shaheer Ali, shared on Facebook that he was harassed in KU while he was returning after dropping one of the female students at the IBA Girls Hostel.

He alleged that 10 young men harassed him after they surrounded him on four motorcycles. “It was about 11:30pm [when] I dropped her to the hostel and then me and my other female friend were headed towards Maskan,” he wrote and added that four motorcycles with a total of about 10 people on them suddenly appeared and surrounded his car, telling him while shouting to get off.