Women in Pakistan always choose silence if they are sexually harassed. It’s true that in most cases, women of our society do not wish to file complaints against their harassers to avoid intimidation and vilification.
Pakistan is a patriarchal society where men are the primary authority figures and women are subordinate. Regardless, Parveen Rind decided to speak against the harasser and made sure she expose the culprits.
Who is Parveen Rind?
Parveen Rind is a student of final year MBBS who is studying at the People’s University of Medical and Health Sciences For Women (PUMHSW).
Last week, Rind levelled harassment allegations against People’s University director Ghulam Mustafa Rajput and other suspects.
According to Rind, she was consistently subjected to torture and sexual harassment for four years by Rajput. She also claimed that a hostel warden namely Fareen Atika, tried to strangle her and torture her inside a room.
No girl was safe in the university’s hostel, according to her. Perveen Rind had demanded higher authorities to take notice of the incident.
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.
Case
After her claim, the chief justice took a suo motu notice of Parveen Rind case. The court summoned Shaheed Benazirabad deputy inspector general of police (DIG), senior superintendent of police (SSP), deputy commissioner, and university’s registrar to the next hearing on February 15, seeking individual reports on the matter.
Parveen Rind decides to go barefoot
Earlier today, Parveen Rind reached Sindh High Court barefoot. Talking to the media on the occasion and said that Ghulam Mustafa Rajput has not been arrested yet, he is being supported, she claimed.
She said that there were three women in his room who entered, tortured Parveen, dragged her, and beat her in front of the whole university.
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.
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.
