Unfortunately, in most cases, women living in Pakistan do not wish to file complaints against their harassers to avoid intimidation and vilification.
Regardless, a final year MBBS student of the People’s University of Medical and Health Sciences For Women (PUMHSW) named Parveen Rind decided not to sweep the alarming issue under the rug.
A student of the final medical year, Rind recently protested during the Sindh Minister for Health’s visit to her university against being sexually harassed by the director of the hostel located in Nawabshah.
Claim
Perveen Rind Baloch claimed that she was harassed and tortured by the Ghulam Mustafa Rajput, who is the director of PUMHSW University after she refused to obey him.
Rind said that she was subjected to torture and sexual harassment for four years by the director. She also claimed that a hostel warden namely Fareen Atika, tried to strangle her and torture her inside a room.
She said that she had suffered enough but now she was disclosing it all before the media to protect her life and honour. No girl was safe in the university’s hostel, according to her.
FIR
Rind in a police station also registered an FIR against the three officials and police have started the investigation right away.
Reaction
The university’s registrar has turned down Rind’s statement and said that no such incident had taken place. According to him, her allegations were baseless.
The registrar told the other side of the story that the university administration wanted to reassign hostel rooms among students and house officers but Rind refused to shift to another room.
Previous cases in Sindh
This is not the first time such an incident has taken place in medical colleges of Sindh. Nosheen Kazmi was a fourth-year student at Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Medical University Larkana. In November, she was found dead in her hostel’s room.
She died due to suffocation and no evidence of violence against the student was found.
Case of Dr. Namrita Kumari
Three years ago, on 15th September 2019, the body of Dr. Namrita Kumari, a final year student, was also recovered from the girls’ hostel of the National College. According to the post-mortem report of Dr. Kumari, she was killed after being raped. Her brother said that she was one of the toppers in her class and aced her exams.
Her brother Vishal who is also a doctor told her that his sister was distributing sweets among her fellows just a few hours before her death. How one can commit suicide? Later the matter took a new turn after her post-mortem report confirmed the rape.
What does the law state?
The Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act 2010 states that each organisation would constitute an inquiry committee within 30 days of the enactment of the law to investigate into relevant complaints.
The law states that the committee would include three members, one of whom must be a woman. However, eight years on, public schools and colleges across Sindh are yet to see the law’s implementation.
Sindh government and its action
There is not a single anti-harassment board functioning at any of the public girls’ secondary schools or women’s colleges across Sindh where male faculties and staffers are employed.
The government should form a committee and look into such matters and to avoid such matters, there should be awareness programs across the province. A report from every institute should become compulsory to be formed specially on such matter.
